






'.^^ 






w\^^ 



















'^-^^ 4 



^0 0^= 











\' 



o ^ r. 



.^Vi:;-./ ,.^-;'°'-A ..^---'^'^.^ /V 





TROM AN TJNRETOUCHELD NEGATIVE MADE IN :864- 



Th e Speeches of 

Abraham Lincoln 



Including Inaugurals and 
Proclamations 




With Biographical Introductions 
and Prefatory Notes 



Lincoln Centenary Association 
New York^^^ ^^ AME^CP^ 



pftTwniilfr 



UHlV^RSi 




..so^'^^^A 




dFtttpnarg iEJiittnn i^ 2Iitx? 



3laBUpJ» fnr S'ubsrrtbrra bg tljr 
ICinrolu (EnttFitarg Aaanriatinn 
in (Commpmnration of lljp (§t\e 
^^^nhttht^\ Anniurrsarg nf tbt 
iHirttf nf Abraljam Einniln j^ 



Copyright 1908, by 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ASSOCIATION 



PREFACE. 

Interest in Lincoln, as man and politician — "type, 
flower, and representative of all that is worthily Ameri- 
can " in his historic day — will, as it has been confidently 
predicted, never die. Nor should we of our day be iu 
any haste to forget one whose many public virtues and 
estimable personal character have shed glory on the 
nation he so assiduously and patriotically served and 
loved. The popular heart, at least, will certainly not be 
blamed for continuing to go out warmly to the lovable, 
unostentatious man, whose human nature overflowed 
with sympathy for his kind, and whose devotion to public 
duty was that of a true patriot and a devoted, heroic 
figure at a most critical era in the nation's annals. That 
his many admirable and thoughtful Addresses and State 
Papers continue to be constantly referred to and read 
shows what hold Lincoln had upon the men and events 
of his time, and how effectively and beneficently he in- 
fluenced the trend of affairs in his day. If the Fates did 
not suffer him to live to deal with the great problem of 
Reconstruction, there was much of magnitude that in his 
era he honestly and fearlessly dealt with, and that with 
signal ability, as well as with marvellous clearness, logical 
precision, and sagacity. These characteristics of the 
martyr President are manifestly well brought out in the 
following collection of his more important Speeches and 
Addresses, and especially so in his Inaugurals and Mes- 
sages to Congress, together with a phenomenal power of 
reaching the core of a subject and of imparting to his 
audiences his views and conclusions thereon with justice, 
force, and lucidity. The present Collection, it need 

i 



{{ t»REFACE. 

hardly be said, is not an attempt to vie with the ex- 
haustive and authoritative one prepared under the able 
editorship of President Lincoln's private secretaries, 
Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, and published by The Century 
Co., of New York. The volume has a much more limited 
aim and modest purpose — namely, to produce in popular 
and more compendious form selections from some of the 
chief public utterances of Mr. Lincoln of abiding interest ; 
and so help to perpetuate the well-deserved fame and 
extend the range and scope of public familiarity with the 
great " Liberator's " career and work. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Abraham Lincoln, 186^ _ _ _ Frontispiece 

Birthplace of Lincobi . - - - - 8 

Earliest Portrait of Lincoln, 18/^8 - - - 12 

Home of Lincoln, Springfield, III. - - 78 

Lincoln Statue, by St. Gaudens, Chicago - - 162 

Lincoln as President-Elect, 1860 - - - 259 

Lincoln Portrait by Sartain - - - - sgo 

Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation 

before the Cabinet - _ _ - sq2 

Assassination of Lincoln ----- jf.08 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

General Introduction by the Editor 

1837 (Jan. 27) The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions : 
Address to Young Men's Lyceum, Spring- 
field, 111 1 

1848 (Jan. 12) Speech in the U. S. House of Representatives. 13 

1852 (July 16) Eulogy on Henry Clay, delivered in the State 

House, Springfield, 111 24 

1854 (Oct. 16) Speech in Reply to Judge S. A. Douglas, at 

Peoria, 111 34 

1858 (June 16) Speech at Springfield, 111., at the close of the 

Republican State Convention that nomi- 
nated Mr. Lincoln as United States Senator 52 

(July 10) Speech at Cliicago, 111 62 

(July 17) Speech at Springfield, 111 77 

(Aug. 21) Speech at Ottawa, 111., in Debate with 

Judge Douglas 94 

(Aug. 27) Speecli at Freeport, 111., in Douglas Debate, 

with Lincoln's Rejoinder 110 

(Sep. 15) Speech at Jonesboro, 111., in Douglas Debate.. 129 
(Sep. 18) Speech at Charleston, 111., in Douglas Debate. 151 
(Oct. 7) Speech at Galesburg. 111., in Douglas Debate.. 162 

(Oct. 13) Speech at Quincy, 111., with Rejoinder 185 

(Oct. 15) Speech at Alton, 111., in Douglas Joint Debate 195 

1859 (Mar. 1) Sjieech at Chicago, on night of Municipal Elec- 

tion .... 224 

(Sep. 17) Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio 228 

1880 (Feb. 27) Address at Cooper Institute, New York 259 

(Mar. 6) Address at New Haven, Conn 283 

1861 (Feb. 15) Speech at Pittsburg, Pa 296 

(Feb. 18) Address to Legislature of New York, at 

Albany, N. Y 301 

iii 



iv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

(Feb. 22) Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia.. 303 
Address to Legislature of Penn., at Harris- 
burg 305 

(Mar. 4) First Inaugural at Washington, D. C 308 

1861 (July 4) Message to Congress in Special Session 320 

(Aug. 12) Proclamation of a National Fast-Day 339 

(Dec. 3) Annual Message to Congress 341 

1862 (Mar. 6) Message to Congress recommending Compen- 

sated Emancipation 348 

(April 10) Proclamation recommending Thanksgiving 

for Victories 350 

(Sep. 22) Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation 351 

(Dec. 1) Annual Message to Congress 354 

1863 (Jan. 1) Emancipation Proclamation 363 

(July 15) Proclamation for Thanksgiving 366 

(Nov. 19) Gettysburg Cemetery Address 368 

(Dec. 8) Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. 369 

Annual Message to Congress 373 

1864 (April 18) Address at Sanitary Fair, at Baltimore, Md. 393 
(June 16) Address at Sanitary Fair, at Philadelphia, 

Penn 396 

(Aug. 22) Address to 166th Ohio Regiment 398 

(Aug. 31) Address to 148th Ohio Regiment 399 

(Oct. 20) Proclamation of Thanksgiving 400 

(Nov. 10) Response to a Serenade 402 

(Dec. 6) Annual Message to Congress, 404 

1865 (Mar. 4) Second Inaugural Address 409 

(April 11) Last Public Address 413 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE EMANCIPATOR 
PRESIDENT. 



Fully two-score years nave passed since the assas- 
sination, at Ford's Theatre, Washington, of Abraham 
Lincoln, " the great Emancipator " President, whose 
martyr death has consecrated his name to all coming 
generations of freemen and enshrined it indelibly in the 
hearts of every lover of Humanity. The tragic death of 
this " first of Americans," though it whelmed the nation 
he loved in sorrow when news of it fell upon the appalled 
ear, was yet a glorious and triumphal one, since it was 
the crowning sacrifice of a life spent in Freedom's cause 
and in the loved service at once of his kind and of his 
country. His lamented death and the hideous manner of 
his taking off were but the sad sequel of a period of ca- 
lamitous strife in the nation's annals, when the South, 
seeking to preserve its cherished institution of slavery — 
a vile traffic which Lincoln ever held in dire abhorrence 
— and defying the moral sense of the North against the 
hideous wrong, plunged the nation into one of the most 
terrible wars in history. The conflict, as all know, en- 
tailed a loss of nearly a million lives and the expenditure 
of about thirty-five hundred million dollars ; but it had 
at length its happy consummation, not only in reuniting 
and cementing the riven Union, but by the great edict of 
Emancipation, the work we might almost say alone of 
the kindly, humane President, in abolishing slavery for- 
ever from the country and elevating the slave to the 
rights and privileges of freemen. What the conse- 



Vi INTRODUCTION. 

quences of the edict were in the issues of the war there is 
little need to relate. As an act of astute and noble- 
minded statesmanship, " war measure " though it was 
deemed, it achieved its high and memorable purpose, of 
putting an end to tlie mighty conflict, restoring peace to 
the blood-sodden nation, and reestablishing it in its entire 
integrity, with undivided authority. The far-seeing de- 
vice of Lincoln and his administration, with its beneficent 
results in banning slavery for all time from the country 
and relieving the oppressed black man from his shackles, 
was naturally hailed by the plaudits of the world. Care- 
ful personally not to go beyond the Constitution in seek- 
ing to liberate the slave in whatever State or Territory 
he was in bondage, Lincoln had heretofore bided his 
time to put his Emancipation measure in force, which 
was to end the hitherto " irrepressible conflict " and re- 
store the dissevered Union. But when the fit occasion 
came, at a favorable turn in the protracted and harrow- 
ing conflict, he, " the providential man raised up for his 
era," obeyed the behests of his own conscience and heart 
and launched with confident hand and will the tactful 
yet merciful edict. How potent and instant were its 
effects, we all know ; though we also know how, in cer- 
tain quarters at the time, it was fought against and dis- 
credited, and what wrath was loosed to descend upon the 
great chieftain's head who was alone responsible for its 
issuance and promulgation. 

This biding his time to abolish slavery has almost in- 
explicably raised the question whether Lincoln really 
cared to put an end to the vile traffic, or whether he 
merely used the Emancipation edict as a war measure 
tactically directed against the South in rebellion. We 
need hardly argue the point with those wlio have raised 
it, since nothing, we hold, is plainer in the entire history 
of Lincoln's career than his sympathy for the slave and 
his abhorrence of an institution that kept him in a hated 
find cruel bondage. He was not, it is true, a negrophilist j 



INTRODUCTION. 



Vll 



but nothing, on the other hand, is more self-evident than 
that he was ever an abolitionist and opposed in his heart 
of hearts to the giant evil of slavery, which not only 
shocked his moral sense, but was emphatically alien to 
his kindly, humane nature. In proof of this, we need but 
mention his early threat against the institution at the 
period of his flat-boat trip down the Mississippi, when he 
saw slaves bought and sold like dumb cattle in the slave 
marts of New Orleans, or when he witnessed, with 
strained heart, the poor blacks manacled and cruelly 
flogged at whipping-posts by their tyrannous masters 
That threat, that some. day "he would hit the institution 
hard," he long kept in his heart, while he knew that it 
never could be compromised with, and therefore sought 
by all means within his power to keep the infamous 
traffic within bounds and to hinder its extension wherever 
it was not law. Hardly less indicative of the great 
Emancipator's early attitude in opposition to the slave 
traffic is the stand he took in regard to the Dred Scott 
case, that slavery deprived the black man of the rights 
and privileges of citizenship, or that memorable assertion 
he made in 1858, at the Springfield (111.) Convention that 
nominated Lincoln for the United States Senate, when 
he told its members, in his appeal for unity, that " the 
Government of the country cannot endure permanently 
half -slave and half- free," adding that " a house divided 
against itself cannot stand." Still more emphatic were 
his words in 1864, when war was devastating the land, 
and when all knew that Secession had mainly been 
brought about by the imperious wish to perpetuate sla- 
very in the South. Lincoln's words then were the once 
familiar dictum of Abolition orators, that " if slavery is 
not wrong, then nothing is wrong " — a dictum of unmis- 
takable cogency and truth. It took, as we know, a great 
crisis in the affairs of the nation to get rid of the " hated 
thing ; " but this does not detract from the credit due to 
Lincoln for abolishing it, and thus striking down, by au 



Viii INTRODUCTION. 

effective and fatal blow, the distinctive barrier, socially 
and politically, between North and South, and applying a 
remedy that determined the issues in the great Rebellion 
conflict. The controversy once rife over this matter is 
surely to-day in need of no further argument, any more 
than there is need to argue again the question, also once 
rife, as to the religious character of the great President 
and the precise complexion of his religious belief. In re- 
gard to the latter, there can, we think, be little room for 
contention, since though Lincoln was himself chary of 
giving expression in words to the character and extent of 
his faith in God, his life, we know, was a highly moral 
and righteous one, and conspicuously human in its tend- 
erness. Though in his early career he may have been 
indiiferent to religion, his personal and public life was 
later on marked by a deep sense not only of responsibility 
to a Higher Power than that of man, but of an abiding 
trust in a Divine Being, whose will and purposes he 
sought to obey and give effect to in the administration of 
his great office. Notable also was his reverent consecra- 
tion of himself to the service of his fellow- man and to the 
heavy and exacting calls of the nation. The spirit in 
which he addressed himself to the accomplishment of the 
great task he assumed at Washington is manifest in his 
parting words, at Springfield, 111., to his fellow citizens, 
on talving leave of them to engage in the arduous duties 
of the Presidency. "Friends," he said to them, "one 
who has never been placed in a like position can little 
understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive 
sadness I feel at this parting. I go to assume a task more 
difficult than that which devolved upon WashingtoiL 
Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and 
aid me, I must fail ; but if the same Omniscient mind and 
Almighty arm that directed and protected him shall 
guide and support me, I shall not fail, I shall succeed." 
Here, undoubtedly, we have the true Lincoln, and see the 
spirit of inner trust and dependence in which he wrought 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

and achieved his work. With this manifestation of the 
real man, can we doubt the secret of his meditative 
moods, amid all his jocularities and racy story-tellings, 
which endeared him to everyone and brought him into 
close and kindly touch with his kind ? 

Curious as well as interesting is it to trace in Lincoln's 
early years the makings of this extraordinary, self-made 
man. Nothing could well be more humble and obscure 
than the l^eginnings of his life, in cabin or camp, in the 
Kentucky scenes of his origin, or in the rough wilderness 
home in which he was " raised " in Indiana. In the latter 
State he early lost his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln ; 
thougli in his shiftless father's second wife, the kindly 
and sensible Sally Johnston, he was fortunate to find a 
worthy substitute, to whom Honest Abe was ever greatly 
attached and of whom he grew to be gratefully and duti- 
fully fond. At his parents' humble home, at Pigeon 
Creek, Abe spent his youth time, snatching what irre- 
gular and limited schooling he could obtain in the neigh- 
borhood, while contributing to his growth by an active 
life in the woods, catching coons and opossums, inter- 
spersed by " doing chores " at home for his stepmother, 
or helping his father in cutting the family firewood or in 
felling timber for rustic cabins for the more well-to-do 
settler. At this period, Abe, who had meantime grown 
up a tall, lanky, ill-knit lad, of homely appearance and 
somewhat rough though kindly manners, was deemed by 
those who knew him as lazy and disinclined to work, but 
who delighted to spin yarns -with his fellows when he was 
not lying prone under a shade tree or up in the cabin- 
loft reading, ciphering or scribbling. About this time he 
began to develop gifts of native oratory, and when op- 
portunity offered would take with avidity to political 
speech-making, enlivening his stump efforts with witty 
jokes and amusing stories. His ambition now became 
earnest to prepare himself for the public arena, and in 
this creditable purpose he became more assiduous after 



X INTRODUCTION. 

his trading expedition to New Orleans and when his 
father had immigrated to Illinois, where, however, he 
soon died. His son, Abraham, now settled near Salem, 
on the Sagamon river, some twenty miles or so northwest 
of Springfield. Here the future President became clerk 
in a store, captain of a militia company, which took part 
in what is known as the Black Hawk war, and after some 
brief experience as a surveyor he studied law and associ- 
ated himself with a Mr. Herndon in a legal partnership, 
meanwhile acting temporarily as village postmaster and 
seeking election to the Illinois State Legislature. To the 
latter, on a second candidature, young Lincoln was suc- 
cessful, and he now began to make a local reputation in 
politics, the while commending himself to his constitu- 
ents as a staunch supporter of schemes for internal im« 
provement and development. 

In storekeeping, Lincoln hadn't the plodding, steady- 
going habits that would enable him to succeed ; while as 
a lawyer, though he was neither widely nor soundly read 
in jurisprudence, he won for himself a respectable and 
even an honored position. Moreover, he was too honest 
to accept fees from suitors whose cases he knew or 
suspected were not such as should commend them to a 
man of scrupulous conscience and moral judgment. In 
the Legislature, while he was loyal to the wants of his 
own section of the State, and strove to advance its inter- 
ests, he seems at times to have been too inconsiderate of 
the State purse when demands were made upon it for 
railway projects and schemes for improved river naviga- 
tion. He was however careful not to lend himself to 
party jobbery, still less to log-rolling schemes of ques- 
tionable morality ; while he became widely known for 
his manly, consistent probity and his sensitiveness to 
matters affecting his personal honor. As a speaker in and 
out of the Legislature, he interested his audiences by his 
effective utterances, set forth in plain, terse language, 
seasoned with humor and at times with a biting wit. His 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

manner of address was usually awkward, but was often 
impassioned and full of fire ; while his great fund of aptly 
told stories enabled him always to draw large and de- 
lighted gatherings of people, whenever he was known or 
expected to appear on the stump. 

It was at this, or rather at an earlier, period of his 
career that Lincoln had his unhappy experience of love- 
making, the first episode ending calamitously in the death 
of Ann Rutledge, a young lady to whom the now rising 
Western publicist and orator seems to have been tenderly 
attached. The shock of her early death, we are told, 
threw the devoted lover into transports of grief, which 
appears for a time to have threatened his reason. With 
the assuagement of Time and preoccupation in his pro- 
fessional and political life, Lincoln, as we know, however, 
got over his early bereavement, and in 1842 married 
Mary Todd, of Lexington, Ky. This marriage, it is ad- 
mitted, was not a happy one, owing partly to the lady's 
superior education and higher social position, though per- 
haps more truly to incompatibility of temper. Of the al- 
liance, Lincoln, however, was never known to complain, 
obviously influenced in this respect by motives which did 
him honor ; while he ever bore himself towards his wife 
as became a considerate and leal-hearted gentleman. 

Great issues were now commencing to loom on the 
political horizon, when Lincoln was to take a prominent, 
and at length a commanding, position in their discussion 
and direction. To the consideration and handling of 
these issues the orator's phenomenal gifts and qualities 
of heart and brain were very helpful in enabling him 
to unravel the knots, and in leading him to divine the 
course the issues ought to take in the broadest interests 
of the nation. Before this era, the frontier " rail-splitter " 
had provisionally become a member of Congress ; but it 
was not until the year 1854, four years after Clay's Mis- 
souri Compromise Bill had transferred the preponder- 
ance of power to the South, by opening the territories to 



Xii iNTRODirCTION. 

the extension of slavery and enforcing the Fugitive- 
Slave Law, that Lincoln's political career actively and 
influentially began. It was at this juncture also that 
Judge Stephen A. Douglas, an Illinois senator, came into 
national prominence and influence. With the latter, 
" the little giant " as Douglas was popularly called, Lin- 
coln had ere this crossed swords in heated debate, when 
in 1858 both men were in the running for the United 
States Senate, Lincoln on the Republican and anti-slavery 
side, and his opponent on the Democratic ticket, favoring 
the South and its eagerness for non-interference with its 
peculiar institution and opposing sectional limitation to 
the extension of slavery. By this time, the die was now 
about to be cast, the several political parties ranging 
themselves in opposing camps, and heralding the coming 
of the "irrepressible conflict," which for years was to 
sunder the nation and bring on the dire horrors of the 
War of the Rebellion. Meanwhile Lincoln's notable 
controversy with Douglas greatly enhanced the reputa- 
tion the orator had gained as a debater, while it brought 
him favorably into notice as a likely candidate for the 
Repubhcan nomination to the Presidency. His availa- 
bility for the high post was further shown when an Illi- 
nois committee that had favored his claims despatched 
Lincoln to make a speech at New York and rouse the 
Efist by his discussion of the momentous questions of the 
time. The mission was Lincoln's opportunity, and 
grandly did he rise to the occasion, as we see in the 
memorable speech he delivered in Feb. 1860, before 
an immense and enthusiastic audience at the Cooper In- 
stitute, New York. The speech, which was remarkable 
for its earnestness and moral force, as well as for its 
astute use of constitutional logic, created a furore and 
spread the Western orator's fame throughout the East, 
where his name was already spoken of as a possible 
nominee for the chief office in the nation. The speech 
was followed by other effective utterances in New Eng- 



tl^^TKODUCTION. xiii 

land, where, in his inimitable way, Lincoln made a deep 
impression, despite his rough, almost uncouth, appear- 
ance, and the caution that had been given him, which he 
literally obeyed, to refrain from diverting his audiences 
with his witticisms and amusing Western stories. On 
his return to Illinois, political matters advanced rapidly, 
and Mr. Seward, Honest Abe's chief rival for the Presi- 
dency, was soon to hear of the two great political parties 
ranging themselves in hostile array, and to see the North 
dividing itself into a preponderating element, styled Lin- 
coln States. This was followed by party dissensions 
and waverings, and by an ominous split in the Democra- 
tic camp, hastened by the rising indignation in the North 
over the threat of Southern Secession and the precipita- 
tion of armed strife. 

The nation now neared the era of its heavy and sore 
trial, at the approach of which Buchanan, then chief 
magistrate, stood perplexed and irresolute, unable to meet 
and deal with, far less to avert, the coming crisis. His 
term of office was to expire in the following March (1861), 
and in the month of May, 1860, the National Republican 
Convention met at Chicago to select a candidate to suc- 
ceed Buchanan in the Presidency. That the choice was 
likely now to be a "Western man was pretty evident, 
since of late the centre of political power had crept West- 
ward ; while the " available " man, as we have indicated, 
appeared to be the plain, modest, undistinguished lawyer 
of Springfield, 111., a man thought to be eminently " safe " 
from the politician's point of view, yet who was exceed- 
ingly popular in his own State, and was now beginning 
to be widely known for his great oratorical and logical 
powers, his moderate views, and his intimate acquaint- 
ance with the distracting questions of the time. Tlie 
contest, on the Republican side, was between Seward, 
Chase, and Lincoln ; on the Democratic side, the rival 
candidates were Breckinridge, the Southern favorite ; 
Douglas, the representative of Northern Democracy ; and 



Xiv INTRODUCTION. 

Bell (Governor of Tennessee), the standard-bearer ol 
what was then termed the Constitutional Union Party. 
Of these various men in the field for the high prize, Lin- 
coln, in the estimation of the political wirepullers, was 
deemed the least likely to win, for, in comparison with 
his rivals, he was comparatively unknown ; while even 
up to this period few persons, as it has been said, " real- 
ized the grandeur of Lincoln's character, his splendid 
common sense, and his marvellous insight into the real 
nature of things." He moreover represented, as the same 
authority CProf. Edward Channing) has expressed it, 
" that which was best in American life, under every dis- 
advantage of birth and breeding, he raised himself by his 
own exertions to the level of the best statesmen of the 
day. His sincerity, his straightforwardness, his keen 
perception of right and wrong, were all enforced by a 
sense of humor and a kindliness of bearing that endeared 
him to all with whom he came in contact." He was, 
moreover, as we know, ever near to the people, and had 
that gentleness of nature which put him in sympathy with 
the masses and tender towards human hearts in trouble. 
As the critic, Mr. Hamilton Mabie, writes : " It was this 
deep heart of pity and love in him which carried hira far 
beyond the reaches of statesmanship or oratory, and gave 
his words the finality of expression which marks the 
noblest art." Of his poetic temperament, the same 
writer thoughtfully remarks, " that there was a deep vein 
of poetry in Mr. Lincoln is clear to one who reads the 
story of his early life ; and his innate idealism, set in sur- 
roundings so harsh and rude, had something to do with 
his melancholy. The sadness which was mixed with his 
whole life, was, however, largely due to his temperament ; 
in which the final tragedy seemed always to be predicted. 
In that temperament, too, is hidden the secret of the 
rare quality of nature and mind which suffused his pub- 
lic speech and turned so much of it into literature. 
There was humor in it, there was deep human sympathy, j 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

' there was clear mastery of words for the use to which he 
put them ; but there was something deeper and more 
persuasive, — there was the quality of his temperament; 
and temperament is a large part of ge nius. The inner 
forces of his nature played through his thought; and 
when great occasions touched him to tlie quick, his whole 
nature shaped his speech and gave it clear intelligence, 
deep feeling, and that beaut}^ which is distilled out of the 
depths of the sorrows and hopes of the world." 

Such was the manner, and such were the characteristic 
qualities, of the man whom Providence had now raised 
up to preside over the destinies of the nation at a most 
grave and calamitous crisis in its historic annals. What 
his political education had been, and what success he had 
hitherto gained, we have, in the course of this article, 
endeavored to point out, and especially the fame he had 
won as a speaker and debater after his contest with Judge 
Douglas over the senatorship, a contest, as the present 
writer has elsewhere said, " that showed in a remarkable 
manner what his powers were in the field of national as 
well as of local politics, and how effectively he had 
mastered the constitutional and other questions of the 
time that enabled him to vanquish his adversary. Other 
gifts and qualities as a debater brought him success, 
particularly those that extort admiration from an in- 
telligent, dispassionate audience, namely, restraint in the 
speaker, that puts a check upon unfair as well as incon- 
clusive argument, and the absence of temper and of any- 
thing bitter or personal in the style and manner of his 
address. In these respects, the future President was 
invariably honest with himself, as well as with his 
opponent and his hearers, and never allowed himself to 
utter an unbecoming taunt or fling at those opposed to 
him, even in the most heated of party controversies. 
Such, as we have said, were the traits of the man who, 
when great issues were beginning to loom on the troubled 
political horizon, was to take a commanding position in 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

their discussion and direction, and who brought with him 
the potent influences of a clean, high heart, and a record 
for all that was worthy and honorable in one aspiring to 
usefulness and patriotic duty in public life." 

But let us here return to the meeting at Chicago, in 
Nov, 1860, of the National Republican Convention, where 
the practical step was taken in the nomination of a 
president, in succession to Mr. Buchanan, a nomination 
that ranged the forces of slaverj'^ and freedom into deadly 
conflict in the struggle for supremacy in the government 
of the nation. To the attitude and decision of the Con- 
vention the eyes of the whole country were naturally at 
the period turned to the prairie State, and keen was the 
interest felt by all when, after the third ballot, Lin- 
coln was found to be the unanimous choice of the body 
for the presidency, with Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, for 
the office of Vice-president. The election presently 
followed, the popular vote resulting in these figures. 
Lincoln, 1,866,462 ; Douglas, 1,375,157 ; Breckinridge, 
847,953 ; Bell, 590,631. The electoral vote showed the 
following results: Lincoln, 180; Douglas, 12; Breckin- 
ridge, 72 ; and Bell, 39. The sequel to this triumph of 
the Northern anti-slaverj'^ platform was, as all know, the 
secession of South Carolina and the Gulf States, followed 
some few months later by that of the border Slave States, 
and the outbreak of the Civil AVar. For the next foui- 
years, the life of Abraham Lincoln becomes merged in 
that of the nation, and is inseparable from the tragic 
story of the fratricidal conflict which ensued, with the 
terrible period of strain through which both President 
and nation passed in its dire happenings. In March, 
1861, Mr. Lincoln was quietly though impressively in- 
stalled in oftice, on which occasion he made an earnest 
plea for peace and union, at the same time deprecating 
Southern apprehension of menace or danger arising from 
the accession of a Republican Administration. Address- 
ing the South and its sympathizers particularly, Presi- 



INTRODUCTION. 3j:Yii 

dent Lincoln closed his address with these cautionary 
though friendly words : " In your hands, my dissatisfied 
fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous 
issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. 
You can have no conflict without yourselves being the 
aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to 
destroy the government ; while I shall have the most 
solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it. . We 

are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies : 
though passion may have strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, 
stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to 
every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad 
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of 
our nature." With such wise restraint and extreme 
tenderness, did Lincoln appeal to the erring South at 
this critical juncture of affairs, the unhappy answer to 
which, only five weeks later, was the firing upon and 
capture by the Southern forces in the field of Fort 
Sumter. Meanwhile, other United States forts and 
arsenals had been seized by the seceders, and a Con- 
federate Government had been created, with Jefferson 
Davis as President, and the States of Mississippi, Florida, 
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had joined 
South Carolina in passing ordinances of secession. Later 
on, the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and 
Tennessee joined the new-pledged Confederacy and took 
themselves out of the Union. 

While these momentous events were happening, the 
machinery of the Washington Government was organized, 
Mr. Lincoln calling to his Cabinet a number of able and 
experienced men, some of whom had been his rivals in 
the contest for the Presidency. Of these notable men 
called to the councils of the nation, Mr. Seward ac- 
cepted the post of Secretary of State ; Salmon P. Chase, 
who had been a senator and governor of Ohio, wa? made 



Xviii INTRODUCTION. 

Secretary of the Treasury ; Gideon Welles became Secre- 
tary of the Navy ; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster- 
General ; Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney-General ; 
Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior ; while the 
Secretary of War was Simon Cameron, of Peimsylvania, 
later on succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton. Of these states- 
men, strong and able though they severally were, the 
master hand in the rule of the nation was Lincoln him- 
self, as we see in his effective though quiet rebuke to 
Seward, who had showed a disposition shortly after the 
President's installation, if not to take the direction of 
affairs into his own hand, to assert his own individuality 
as chief minister of the State. Not to be borne was this 
impatience of Mr. Seward, for Mr. Lincoln's capacity was 
undoubted to manage both affairs and men under him, 
while doing no violence constitutionally by any arbitrary 
proceedings of his own, or in vital matters overriding the 
wise, legitimate counsels of his Cabinet. 

The aggressive act of the Confederacy in its attack on 
Fort Sumter, while it startled the North and inflamed its 
people with a righteous indignation, was promptly and 
vigorously met by President Lincoln, by an instant call, 
as commander-in-chief, for 75.000 men of the Union 
militia — a call that was immediately and enthusiastically 
responded to. With its issue as a retort to the Southern 
challenge to battle, Mr. Lincoln commanded the seced- 
ing States in arms to disperse and return peacefully to 
their homes within twenty days, while he at the same 
time appealed " to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, 
and aid the effort to maintain the honor, the integrity 
and existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity 
of popular government." This was followed by placing 
the Southern ports under blockade, and by calls for 
larger levies of troops to cope with the crisis, which, on 
and after the battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861) assumed 
menacing and destructive proportions. So grave was the 
emergency, and so protracted as well as disastrous at 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

first to the Northern arms was the struggle, that the 
cares and responsibilities of his exalted office bore heavily 
on the President and put a most serious and constant 
strain upon him and his Administration. Especially 
onerous were the duties and depressing the effects upon 
Mr. Lincoln when a year even had elapsed with no 
decisive results, although at this time 200,000 men had 
been put in the field and experiment after experiment 
had been tried with the generals who had been succes- 
sively appointed to chief command in the War. Amid 
the perplexities of the time, and the many discourage- 
ments and saddening military reverses that marked his 
four years' incumbency of ofiice, only a resolute, patriotic 
purpose and an undaunted, invincible spirit could have 
sustained Mr. Lincoln in his duties until light at length, 
happily, broke through the gloom and the North emerged 
triumphant from the conflict. 

The details of the mighty struggle, we need hardly saj'', 
it is foreign to the motif of the present volume here to 
relate ; nor is there need obviously of this, with the 
many histories of the war and biographies of its several 
chief commanders available to the reader. Our purpose 
rather is to follow, in as brief compass as possible, the 
main incidents in the career of President Lincoln, as an 
introduction to his chief Speeches and Addresses, and to 
throw light upon the mental and moral character of the 
man and on his equipment as an orator and debater of 
the first eminence among great American Statesmen. As 
we have said, the conflict, with its repeated disasters and 
dismays throughout the dark days of its early conduct, 
told heavily upon the President ; and great was the tax 
upon his energies and anxieties in directing and manag- 
ing affairs and in keeping the nation in heart to pursue 
the war to a successful close. Nor was the task made 
easier with dissension in the Cabinet, and criticisms from 
the outside, including all manner of misrepresentations 
and sometimes ridiculings and malignings, uncomplain- 



XX 



INTRODUCTION. 



ingly borne, with the sturdiness and chivalry of his 
kindly, inoffensive nature. Obviously, moreover, the 
matter of selecting and appointing the generals- in- chief 
placed a heavy responsibility upon the President's 
shoulders, and often, unfortunately, was he called to this 
duty, in consequence of the successive failures or tardi- 
ness in movement of those in chief command. The re- 
straint he placed upon himself in the matter of emanci- 
pating the slaves was a further trial to Lincoln, since, 
however anxious he was to resort to the measure, which 
finally led to the discomfiture of the South and brought 
the War to a close, he was long deterred from putting 
the liberating edict in force until it became indispensable 
(as well as justifiable) as a means " to the preservation of 
the Constitution through the preservation of the nation." 
At length, the time came when the peremptory decree of 
Emancipation could with reason and certain effectiveness 
be launched ; and this was done Jan. 1, 1863, with obvious 
and fortunate results. Almost instantly thereafter there 
were signs of breaking day, in the events that followed — 
in the siege and capture of Vicksburg and the clearing 
and opening of the Mississippi ; in the military move- 
ments that led to the cutting of the Confederate States in 
twain ; and in the operations, later on, such as the great 
battle of Chattanooga, Sheridan's driving the enemy from 
the Valley of the Shenandoah, the capture of Mobile, and 
the movements of Grant on his onward march upon 
Richmond, with Lee's rout and surrender at Appomattox 
and the finale of the war. The conflict, on both sides, 
had its appalling losses of both life and treasure ; but the 
end, forecast even before his passing tragically from the 
scene, was to cheer Lincoln's heart and gladden his soul, 
despite all the sacrifices, on the Northern side, entailed 
to preserve the Union. 

Though the war in many quarters had its numberless 
active and noisy opponents, and though many, more 
reasonably, grumbled at the entailed alarming deprecia- 



INTRODUCTION. XXl 

tion of the currency and the heaping up of financial 
deficits, with burdening pension-list imposts, Mr. 
Lincoln, at the expiring of his first term, was reelected 
in 1864, with Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, on the 
ticket with him for Vice-President. Mr. Lincoln's 
election for a new term gave occasion for the preparation 
and delivery of the great Chief's Second Inaugural 
Address (delivered at Washington, Mar. 4. 1865), an 
utterance of brief, but dignified and memorable, interest. 
In the address, as it has been observed, are to be noted 
Mr. Lincoln's characteristic " tenderness and compassion, 
blended with stern energy and iron firmness of will, 
which shrank from bloodshed and violence, yet counted 
any sacrifice of blood and treasure as of little account in 
comparison with the transcendent blessing of national 
union and liberty." It closes with the following fine 
adjuration : " With malice toward none ; with charity for 
all ; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the 
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to 
build up the nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall 
have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan 
— to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and last- 
ing peace among ourselves, and with all nations." More 
brief still, but surpassing the Second Inaugural in pathetic 
tenderness and high literary interest, is Mr. Lincoln's 
address at the Dedication (Nov. 19, 1863) of the Gettys- 
burg National Cemetery. For simple but fervid eloquence 
and unstudied beauty of rhetoric, the Address has hardly 
its equal among the immortal utterances of the world's 
oratory. Especially noteworthy is the dignity of its 
rhythmic sentences, as are its reticence and its remark- 
able condensation. How true and touching, as well as 
beautiful, is the following passage : " We cannot dedicate, 
we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, 
have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. 
The world will little note nor long remember what we 



XXii INTRODUCTION. 

say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It 
is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the 
unfinished work which they who fouglit here have thus 
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us: that 
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to 
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead 
shall not have died in vain ; that this nation, under God, 
shall have a new birth of freedom ; and that Government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth." 

The auspicious aspect of affairs in 1865, in the prospect 
of a speedy termination of the prolonged and disastrous 
war, spread elation over the North and was an immense 
relief to all classes of the people. By President Lincoln 
it was hailed with manifest inward satisfaction ; while 
great was his delight at the coming peaceful reunion of 
the nation. Happily, ere his own tragic death came, he 
was to learn of almost the final incident in the long 
chronicle of internecine strife, for at Appomattox, on 
April 9th, Lee, the great leader of the Southern arms, 
surrendered the army of Northern Virginia to General 
Grant, and practically the end came of the rebellion. In 
startling and pitiful contrast to the return of peace over 
the land, was the event which sent a thrill of horror 
throughout and beyond the nation, the striking down of 
the loved President, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, 
on the evening of April 14th, by the weapon of the assas- 
sin, J. Wilkes Booth, " a demented sympathizer with the 
cause of disunion." Early in the morning of the follow- 
ing fateful day, Lincoln's soul passed from its earthly 
tenement, and a pall of deep gloom spread over the land, 
broken only by the lamentations of the people he loved 
so well. The funeral obsequies of the martyred chief- 
tain a day or two later followed, and Lincoln's remains 
•were borne amid mighty pageantries to their last resting- 



INTRODUCTION. Xxiii 

place in Springfield, 111., the patriot President's former 
home. The Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, we need 
hardly relate, succeeded to the oflBce of the chief magis- 
tracy of tl'ie Republic ; while the great war reached its 
close with the fall of Richmond, the flight and subse- 
quent capture of Jefferson Davis, and the clement issue 
of a proclamation of amnesty, with the happy return of 
the Union soldiers and sailors to private life. The work 
of Reconstruction, to which Lincoln had begun to address 
himself before his sadly-mourned death, now passed to 
other hands, while the nation lost in this important task 
what doubtless would have been of rich and priceless 
service to it. Though passed from earth, the memory of 
the great Emancipator is enshrined in the hearts of his 
admiring countrymen ; while he has a no less abiding- 
place in history and on the proud roll of a nation's 
benefactors. 

" Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the first American." 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

By Tom Taylor, ix London Punch, April, 1865. 

" How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be ; 
How, in good fortune and in ill, the same ; 
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, 
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. 

He went about his work — such work as few 
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand, — 

As one who knows, where there's a task to do, 
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command ; 

Who trusts the strength will witii the burden grow, 
That God makes instruments to work his will. 

If but that will we can arrive to know, 
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill. 



Xxiv INTRODUCTION. 

So he went forth to battle, on the side 
That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's, 

As in his peasant boyhood he had plied 
His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights ; 

The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil, 
The iron-bark that turns the lumberer's axe, 

The rapid that o'erbears the boatman's toil, 
The prairie, Jiiding the mazed wanderer's tracks. 

So he grew up, a destined work to do, 
And lived to do it ; four long-suffering years, 

Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through. 
And then lie heard the hisses, changed to cheers, 

The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise. 
And took both with the same unwavering mood ; 

Till, as he came on light, from darkling days. 
And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood, 

A felon hand, between the goal and him. 
Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest, 

And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim , 
Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs vvei'e laid to rest ! 

The words of mercy were upon his lips. 
Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen. 

When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse 
To thoughts of peace on earth, good will to men." 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



THE PERPETUATION OF OUR POLTICAL 
INSTITUTIONS. 

[An Address, delivered Jan. 27, 1837, to a Young Men's Lyceum 
organization in Springfield, 111., which Mr. Lincoln had taken 
part in founding for the mutual improvement of its members. 
In it, it will be seen, how thoughtfully Lincoln refers to the 
prevalent evils of mob rule, and points out the danger that 
menaces political institutions in a lack of reverence for law and 
the displacement of reason by passion and wild appeals to 
passion]. 

In the great journal of things happening under the 
sun, we, the American people, find our account run- 
ning under date of the nineteenth century of the 
Christian era. We find ourselves in the i)eaceful pos- 
session of the fairest portion of the earth as regards 
extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of 
climate. We find ourselves under the government of a 
system of political institutions conducing more essen- 
tially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than 
any of which the history of former times tells us. We, 
when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves 
the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. 
We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of 
them ; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, 
brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed, 
race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly 
they performed it) to possess themselves, and through 
themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon 
its hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty 
and equal rights; 't is ours only to transmit these — - 
the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the 
latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by 

1 



2 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

usurpation — to the latest generation that fate shall 
permit the world to know. This task gratitude to our 
fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love 
for our species in general, all imperatively require us 
faithfully to perform. 

How then shall we perform it? At what point shall 
we expect the approach of danger? By what means 
shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some 
transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and 
crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the 
earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with 
a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take 
a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue 
Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. 

At what point then is the approach of danger to be 
expected? I answer, If it ever reach us it must spring 
up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If de- 
struction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and 
finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through 
all time, or die by suicide. 

I hope I am over wary ; but if I am not, there is even 
now something of ill omen amongst us. I mean the 
increasing disregard for law which pervades the coun- 
try — the growing disposition to substitute the wild and 
furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, 
and the worse than savage mobs for the executive 
ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully fear- 
ful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, 
though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a 
violation of truth and an insult to our intelligence 
to deny. Accounts of outrages committed by mobs 
form the every-day news of the times. They have per- 
vaded the country from New England to Louisiana; 
they are neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the 
former nor the burning suns of the latter; they are not 
the creature of climate, neither are they confined to the 
slaveholding or the non-slaveholding States, Alike 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 3 

they spring up among tbe pleasure-hunting masters of 
Southern slaves, and the order-loving citizens of the 
land of steady habits. Whatever then their cause may 
be, it is common to the whole country. 

It would be tedious as well as useless to recount the 
horrors of all of them. Those haj^pening in the State 
of Mississippi and at St. Louis are perhaps the most 
dangerous in example and revolting to humanity. In 
the Mississippi case they first commenced by hanging 
the regular gamblers — a set of men certainly not folloAv- 
ing for a livelihood a very useful or very honest occupa- 
tion, but one which, so far from being forbidden by 
the laws, was actually licensed by an act of the legis- 
lature passed but a single year before. Next, negroes 
suspected of conspiring to raise an insurrection were 
caught up and hanged in all parts of the State; then, 
white men supposed to be leagued with the negroes; 
and finally, strangers from neighboring States, going 
thither on business, were in many instances subjected 
to the same fate. Thus went on this process of hang- 
ing, from gamblers to negroes, from negroes to white 
citizens, and from these to strangers, till dead men 
were seen literally dangling from the boughs of trees 
upon every roadside, and in numbers almost sufiflcient 
to rival the native Spanish moss of the country as a 
drapery of the forest. 

Turn then to that horror-striking scene at St. Louis. 
A single victim only was sacrificed there. This story 
is very short, and is perhaps the most highly tragic of 
anything of its length that has ever been witnessed in 
real life. A mulatto man by the name of Mcintosh 
was seized in the street, dragged to the suburbs of the 
city, chained to a tree, and actually burned to deatli ; 
and all within a single hour from the time he had been 
a freeman attending to his own business and at peace 
with the world. 

Such are the effects of mob law, and such are the 
scenes becoming more and more frequent in this land 



4 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

SO lately famed for love of law and order, and the 
stories of which have even now grown too familiar to 
attract anything more than an idle remark. 

But you are perhaps ready to ask, " What has this to 
do with the perpetuation of our political institutions? " 
I answer, " It has much to do with it." Its direct con- 
sequences are, comparatively speaking, but a small evil, 
and much of its danger consists in the proneness of 
our minds to regard its direct as its only consequences. 
Abstractly considered, the hanging of the gamblers at 
Vicksburg was of but little consequence. They con- 
stitute a portion of population that is worse than use- 
less in any community; and their death, if no per- 
nicious example be set by it, is never matter of reason- 
able regret with any one. If they were annually swept 
from the stage of existence by the plague or smallpox, 
honest men would perhaps be much profited by thfe 
operation. Similar too is the correct reasoning in re- 
gard to the burning of the negro at St. Louis. He had 
forfeited his life by the perpetration of an outrageous 
murder upon one of the most worthy and respectable 
citizens of the city, and had he not died as he did, he 
must have died by the sentence of the law in a very 
short time afterward. As to him alone, it was as well 
the way it was as it could otherwise have been. But 
the example in either case was fearful. When men take 
it in their heads to-day to hang gamblers or burn mur- 
derers, they should recollect that in the confusion 
usually attending such transactions they will be as 
likely to hang or burn some one who is neither a 
gambler nor a murderer as one who is, and that, act- 
ing upon the example they set, the mob of to-morrow 
may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them 
by the very same mistake. And not only so ; the inno- 
cent, those who have ever set their faces against viola- 
tions of law in every shape, alike with the guilty fall 
victims to the ravages of mob law ; and thus it goes on, 
step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 5 

of the persons and property of individuals are trodden 
down and disregarded. But all this, even, is not the 
full extent of the evil. By such examples, by instances 
of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the 
lawless in spirit are encouraged to become lawless in 
jiractice; and having been used to no restraint but 
dread of punishment, they thus become absolutely un- 
restrained. Having ever regarded government as their 
deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension 
of its operations, and pray for nothing so much as its 
total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good 
men, men who love tranquillity, who desire to abide by 
the lav.s and enjoy their benefits, vrho would gladly 
spill their blood in the defense of their country, seeing 
their property destroyed, their families insulted, and 
their lives endangered, their persons injured, and seeing 
nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the 
better, become tired of and disgusted with a govern- 
ment that offers them no protection, and are not much 
averse to a change in which they imagine they have 
nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this 
mobocratic spirit which all must admit is now abroad 
in the land, the strongest bulwark of any government, 
and particularly of those constituted like ours, may 
effectually be broken dovrn and destroyed — I mean the 
attachment of the people. Whenever this effect shall 
be produced among us ; W'lienever the vicious portion of 
population shall be permitted to gather in bands of 
hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage 
and rob provision-stores, throw printing-presses into 
rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious 
persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend on it, 
this government cannot last. By such things the feel- 
ings of the best citizens will become more or less 
alienated from it, and thus it will be left without 
friends, or with too few, and those few too weak to 
make their friendship effectual. At such a time, and 
under such circumstances, men of sufQcient talent and 



g SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, 
strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for 
the last half century has been the fondest hope of the 
lovers of freedom throughout the world. 

I know the American people are much attached to 
their government; I know they would suffer much for 
its sake; I know they would endure evils long and 
patiently before they would ever think of exchanging 
it for another, — yet, notwithstanding all this, if the 
laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their 
rights to be secure in their persons and property are 
held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the 
alienation of their affections from the government is 
the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, 
it must come. 

Here then is one point at which danger may be ex- 
pected. 

The question recurs, " How shall we fortify against 
it? " The answer is simple. Let every American, every 
lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear 
by the blood of the Eevolution never to violate in the 
least particular the laws of the country, and never to 
tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of 
seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of 
Independence, so to the support of the Constitution 
and laws let every American pledge his life, his prop- 
erty, and his sacred honor — let every man remember 
that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of 
his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his 
children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be 
breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe 
that prattles on her lap ; let it be taught in schools, in 
seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, 
spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from 
the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced 
in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the 
political religion of the nation; and let the old and 
the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 7 

of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, 
sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. 

While ever a state of feeling such as this shall uni- 
versally or even very generally prevail throughout the 
nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every 
attempt, to subvert our national freedom. 

When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all 
the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are 
no bad laws, or that grievances may not arise for the 
redress of which no legal provisions have been made. 
I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that 
although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as 
soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, 
for the sake of example they should be religiously 
observed. So also in unprovided cases. If such arise, 
let proper legal provisions be made for them with the 
least possible delay, but till then let them, if not too 
intolerable, be borne with. 

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress 
by mob law. In any case that may arise, as, for in- 
stance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two 
positions is necessarily true — that is, the thing is 
right within itself, and therefore deserves the protec- 
tion of all law and all good citizens, or it is wrong, 
and therefore proper to be prohibited by legal enact- 
ments; and in neither case is the interposition of mob 
law either necessary, justifiable, or excusable. 

But it may be asked, ^' Why suppose danger to our 
political institutions? Have we not preserved them for 
more than fifty years? And why may we not for fifty 
times as long? " 

We hope there is no suflScient reason. We hope all 
danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no 
danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dan- 
gerous. There are now, and will hereafter be, many 
causes, dangerous in their tendency^ which have not 
existed heretofore, and which are not too insignificant 
to merit attention. That our government should have 



g SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLlSr. 

been maintained in its original form, from its estab- 
lishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. 
It had many props to support it through that period, 
which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through 
that period it was felt by all to be an undecided ex- 
periment; now it is understood to be a successful one. 
Then, all that sought celebrity and fame and distinc- 
tion erpected to find them in the success of that ex- 
periment. Their all was staked upon it; their destiny 
was inseparably linked with it. Their ambition as- 
pired to display before an admiring world a practical 
demonstration of the truth of a proposition which had 
hitherto been considered at best no better than proble- 
matical — namely, the capability of a people to govern 
themselves. If they succeeded they were to be immor- 
talized; their names were to be transferred to counties, 
and cities, and rivers, and mountains ; and to be revered 
and sung, toasted through all time. If they failed, 
they were to be called knaves, and fools, and fanatics 
for a fleeting hour; then to sink and be forgotten. 
They succeeded. The experiment is successful, and 
thousands have won their deathless names in making 
it so. But the game is caught ; and I believe it is true 
that with the catching end the pleasures of the chase. 
This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already 
appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they too 
will seek a field. It is to deny what the history of the 
world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition 
and talents will not continue to spring up amongst 
us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the 
gratification of their ruling passion as others have 
done before them. The question then is, Can that grati- 
fication be found in supporting and maintaining an 
edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly 
it cannot. Many great and good men, sulBflciently 
qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever 
be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing be- 
yond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presiden- 







►< 



cq 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 9 

tial chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, 
or the tribe of the eagle. What ! think you these places 
would satisfy an Alexander, a Csesar, or a Napoleon? 
Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It 
seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinc- 
tion in adding story to story upon the monuments of 
fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that 
it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns 
to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however 
illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and 
if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of 
emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is it un- 
reasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of 
the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to 
push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring 
up among us? And when such an one does, it will re- 
quire the people to be united with each other, attached 
to the government and laws, and generally intelli- 
gent, to successfully frustrate his designs. 

Distinction will be his paramount object, and al- 
though he would as willingly, perhaps more so, ac- 
quire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity 
being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of 
building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling 
down. 

Here then is a probable case, highly dangerous, and 
such an one as could not have well existed heretofore. 

Another reason which once was, but which, to the 
same extent, is now no more, has done much in main- 
taining our institutions thus far. I mean the powerful 
Influence which the interesting scenes of the Revolu- 
tion had upon the passions of the people as distin- 
guished from their judgment. By this influence, the 
jealousy, envy, and avarice incident to our nature, and 
so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and con- 
scious strength, were for the time in a great measure 
smothered and rendered inactive, while the deep-rooted 
principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, 




20 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

instead of being turned against each other, were 
directed exclusively against the British nation. And 
thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest princi- 
ples of our nature were either made to lie dormant, or 
to become the active agents in the advancement of the 
noblest of causes— that of establishing and maintain- 
ing civil and religious liberty. 

But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has 
faded, with the circumstances that produced it. 

I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolu- 
tion are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, 
like everything else, they must fade upon the memory 
of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse 
of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and 
recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even 
granting that they will, their influence cannot be what 
it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so 
universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by 
the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that 
struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participa- 
tor in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of 
those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a 
son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in 
every family — a history bearing the indubitable testi- 
monies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, 
in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the 
very scenes related — a history, too, that could be read 
and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, 
the learned and the unlearned. But those histories 
are gone. They can be read no more forever. They 
were a fortress of strength ; but what invading foe- 
man could never do, the silent artillery of time has 
done — the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They 
were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurri- 
cane has swept over them, and left only here and there 
a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its 
foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few 
more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. n 

limbs more ruder storms, then to sink and be no 
more. 

They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now 
that they have crumbled away that temple must fall 
unless we, their descendants, supply their places with 
other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober 
reason. Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. 
It will in future be our enemy. Keason — cold, cal- 
culating, unimpassioned reason — must furnish all the 
materials for our future support and defense. Let 
those materials be molded into general intelligence, 
sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the 
Constitution and laws; and that we improved to the 
last, that we remained free to the last, that we revered 
his name to the last, that during his long sleep we per- 
mitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his 
resting-place, shall be that which to learn the last 
trump shall awaken our Washington. 

Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as 
the rock of its basis, and, as truly as has been said of 
the only greater institution, '' the gates of hell shall 
not prevail against it." 



12 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAjM LINCOLN. 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTA- 
TIVES, WASHINGTON— JAN. 12, 1848. 

[The followins: is the earliest of Mr. Lincoln's printed speeches 
in Congress, delivered during the Honorable Member's first Con- 
gressional Session. The era was that of the War \\ath Mexico, 
and the burden of the speech is a difference with President 
Polk over the cause of the War, in the vexed question at the 
period as to the true boundary of Texas, then recently admitted 
as a State of the Union. In the vmcertainty as to the true 
boundary of the State, — whether at the Nueces River, in South- 
western Texas, or at the Rio Grande, — Lincoln held that the 
Administration had done wrong to sanction the erection of 
Fort Brown, on the Rio Grande, and that the nation was guilty 
of aggression on Mexican territory, which led to " the shedding of 
American blood on American soil." The arraignment of the 
President, it will be seen, is a tart one, and in the forced issue 
it was naturally unpopular at the era, when the nation was 
exultant over the achievements of the War]. 

J/r. Chairman : Some if not all the gentlemen on the 
other side of the House who have addressed the com- 
mittee within the last two days have spoken rather 
complainingly, if I have rightly understood them, of 
the vote given a week or ten days ago declaring that 
the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconsti- 
tutionally commenced by the president. I admit that 
such a vote should not be given in mere party 
wantonness, and that the one given is justly censurable, 
if it have no other or better foundation. I am one of 
those who joined in that vote; and I did so under my 
best impression of the truth of the case. How I got 
this impression, and how it may possibly be remedied, 
I will now try to show. When the war began, it was 
my opinion that all those who because of knowing too 
little, or because of knowing too much, could not con- 
scientiously oppose the conduct of the President in the 
beginning of it should nevertheless, as good citizens 




Earliest Portrait of Lincoln, 1848 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^3 

and patriots, remain silent on that point, at least till 
the war should be ended. Some leading Democrats, 
including ex-President Van Buren, have taken this 
same view, as 1 understand them ; and I adhered to it 
and acted upon it, until since I took my seat here ; and 
I think I should still adhere to it were it not that the 
President and his friends will not allow it to be so. 
Besides the continual effort of the President to argue 
every silent vote given for supplies into an indorse- 
ment of the justice and wisdom of his conduct; besides 
that singularly candid paragraph in his late message 
in which he tells us that Congress with great una- 
nimity had declared that " by the act of the Republic of 
Mexico, a state of war exists between that Government 
and the United States," when the same journals that 
informed him of this also informed him that when that 
declaration stood disconnected from the question of 
supplies sixty-seven in the House, and not fourteen 
merely, voted against it; besides this open attempt to 
prove by telling the truth what he could not prove 
by telling the whole truth — demanding of all who will 
not submit to be misrepresented, in justice to them- 
selves, to speak out, — besides all this, one of my col- 
leagues [Mr. Richardson] at a very early day in the ses- 
sion brought in a set of resolutions expressly indors- 
ing the original justice of the war on the part of the 
President. Upon these resolutions when they shall be 
put on their passage I shall be compelled to vote; so 
that I cannot be silent if I would. Seeing this, I went 
about preparing myself to give the vote understand- 
ingly when it should come. I carefully examined the 
President's message, to ascertain what he himself had 
said and proved upon the point. The result of this ex- 
amination was to make the impression that, taking for 
true all the President states as facts, he falls far short 
of proving his justification ; and that the President 
would have gone farther with his proof if it had not 
been for the small matter that the truth would not per- 



;^4 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

mit him. Under the impression thus made I gave the 
vote before mentioned. I propose now to give con- 
cisely the process of the examination I made, and how 
I reached the conclusion I did. The President, in his 
first war message of May, 1846, declares that the soil 
was ours on which hostilities were commenced by 
Mexico, and he repeats that declaration almost in the 
same language in each successive annual message, thus 
showing that he deems that point a highly essential 
one. In the importance of that point I entirely agree 
with the President. To my judgment it is the very 
point upon which he should be justified, or condemned. 
In his message of December, 1846, it seems to have oc- 
curred to him, as is certainly true, that title — owner- 
ship — to soil or anything else is not a simple fact, but 
is a conclusion following on one or more simple facts ; 
and that it was incumbent upon him to present the 
facts from which he concluded the soil was ours on 
which the first blood of the war was shed. 

Accordingly, a little below the middle of page twelve 
in the message last referred to he enters upon that 
task ; forming an issue and introducing testimony, ex- 
tending the whole to a little below the middle of page 
fourteen. Now, I propose to try to show that the whole 
of this — issue and evidence — is from beginning to end 
the sheerest deception. The issue, as he presents it, 
is in these words : " But there are those who, conceding 
all this to be true, assume the ground that the true 
western boundary of Texas is the Nueces, instead of 
the Rio Grande; and that, therefore, in marching our 
army to the east bank of the latter river, we passed the 
Texas line and invaded the territory of Mexico." Now 
this issue is made up of two affirmatives and no nega- 
tive. The main deception of it is that it assumes as 
true that one river or the other is necessarily the boun- 
dary; and cheats the superficial thinker entirely out 
of the idea that possibly the boundary is somewhere 
between the two, and not actually at either. A further 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^[5 

deception is that it will let in evidence which a true 
issue would exclude. A true issue made by the Presi- 
dent would be about as follows : " I say the soil was 
ours, on which the first blood was shed; there are those 
who say it was not." 

I now proceed to examine the President's evidence as 
applicable to such an issue. When that evidence is 
analyzed, it is all included in the following proposi- 
tions : 

(1) That the Eio Grande was the western boundary 
of Louisiana as we purchased it of France in 1803. 

(2) That the Republic of Texas always claimed the 
Rio Grande as her western boundary. 

(3) That by various acts she had claimed it on paper. 

(4) That Santa Anna in his treaty with Texas recog- 
nized the Rio Grande as her boundary. 

(5) That Texas before, and the United States after, 
annexation had exercised jurisdiction beyond the 
Neuces — between the two rivers. 

(6) That our Congress understood the boundary of 
Texas to extend beyond the Keuces. 

Now for each of these in its turn. His first item is 
that the Rio Grande was the western boundary of 
Louisiana, as we purchased it of France in 1803; and 
seeming to expect this to be disputed, he argues over 
the amount of nearly a page to prove it true ; at the end 
of which he lets us know that by the treaty of 1819 we 
sold to Spain the whole country from the Rio Grande 
eastward to the Sabine. Now, admitting for the pres- 
ent that the Rio Grande was the boundary of Louisiana, 
what, under heaven, had that to do with the present 
boundary between us and Mexico? How, Mr. Chair- 
man, the line that once divided your land from mine 
can still be the boundary between us after I have sold 
my land to you is to me beyond all comprehension. 
And how any man, with an honest purpose only of prov- 
ing the truth, could ever have thought of introduc- 
ing such a fact to prove such an issue is equally incom- 



1Q SPEECHES OF ABRAHAJVI LINCOLN. 

prehensible. His next piece of evidence is that "the 
Republic of Texas always claimed this river (Rio 
Grande) as her western boundary." That is not true, 
in fact. Texas has claimed it, but she has not always 
claimed it. There is at least one distinguished excep- 
tion. Her State constitution — the republic's most 
solemn and well-considered act; that which may, with- 
out impropriety, be called her last will and testa- 
ment, revoking all others — makes no such claim. But 
suppose she had always claimed it. Has not Mexico 
always claimed the contrary? So that there is but 
claim against claim, leaving nothing proved until we 
get back of the claims and find which has the better 
foundation. Though not in the order in which the 
President presents his evidence, I now consider that 
class of his statements which are in substance nothing 
more than that Texas has, by various acts of her Con- 
vention and Congress, claimed the Rio Grande as her 
boundary, on paper. I mean here what he says about 
the fixing of the Rio Grande as her boundary in her 
old constitution (not her State constitution), about 
forming congressional districts, counties, etc. Now all 
of this is but naked claim ; and what I have already 
said about claims is strictly applicable to this. If I 
should claim your land by word of mouth, that cer- 
tainly would not make it mine; and if I were to claim 
it by a deed which I had made myself, and with which 
you had had nothing to do, the claim would be quite 
the same in substance — or rather, in utter nothingness. 
I next consider the President's statement that Santa 
Anna in his treaty with Texas recognized the Rio 
Grande as the western boundary of Texas. Besides 
the position so often taken, that Santa Anna while a 
prisoner of war, a captive, could not bind Mexico by a 
treaty, which 1 deem conclusive — besides this, I wish 
to say something in relation to this treaty, so called 
by the President, with Santa Anna. If any man would 
like to be amused by a sight of that little thing which 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 17 

the President calls by that big name, he can have it 
by turning to " Niles's Register," Vol. L, p. 336. And 
if any one should suppose that " Niles's Register " is a 
curious repository of so mighty a document as a solemn 
treaty between nations, I can only say that I learned 
to a tolerable degree of certainty, by inquiry at the 
State Department, that the President himself never 
saw it anywhere else. By the way, I believe I should 
not err if I were to declare that during the first ten 
years of the existence of that document it was never by 
anybody called a treaty — that it was never so called till 
the President, in his extremity, attempted by so call- 
ing it to wring something from it in justification of 
himself in connection with the Mexican war. It has 
none of the distinguishing features of a treaty. It does 
not call itself a treaty. Santa Anna does not therein 
assume to bind Mexico; he assumes only to act as the 
President-Commander-in-Chief of the Mexican army 
and navy; stipulates that the then present hostilities 
should cease, and that he would not himself take up 
arras, nor influence the Mexican people to take up arms, 
against Texas during the existence of the war of inde- 
pendence. He did not recognize the independence of 
Texas; he did not assume to put an end to the war, but 
clearly indicated his expectation of its continuance; 
he did not say one word about boundary, and, most 
probably, never thought of it. It is stii)ulated therein 
that the Mexican forces should evacuate the territory 
of Texas, passing to the other side of the Rio Grande ; 
and in another article it is stipulated that, to prevent 
collisions between the armies, the Texas army should 
not approach nearer than within five leagues — of what 
is not said, but clearly, from the object stated, it is of 
the Rio Grande. Now, if this is a treaty recognizing 
the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas, it contains 
the singular features of stipulating that Texas shall not 
go within five leagues of her own boundary. 

Next comes the evidence of Texas before annexation, 
o 



13 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and the United States afterward, exercising jurisdic- 
tion beyond the Nueces and between the two rivers. 
This actual exercise of jurisdiction is the very class or 
quality of evidence w^e want. It is excellent so far 
as it goes; but does it go far enough? He tells us it 
went beyond the Nueces, but he does not tell us it went 
to the Rio Grande. He tells us jurisdiction was ex- 
ercised between the two rivers, but he does not tell us 
it was exercised over all the territory between them. 
Some simple-minded people think it is possible to cross 
one river and go beyond it without going all the way to 
the next, that jurisdiction may be exercised between 
two rivers without covering all the country betw^een 
them. I know a man, not very unlike myself, who 
exercises jurisdiction over a piece of land between the 
Wabash and the Mississippi ; and yet so far is this from 
being all there is between those rivers that it is just 
one hundred and fifty-two feet long by fifty feet wide, 
and no part of it much within a hundred miles of 
either. He has a neighbor between him and the Miss- 
issippi — that is, just across the street, in that direction 
— whom I am sure he could neither persuade nor force 
to give up his habitation ; but which nevertheless he 
could certainly annex, if it were to be done by merely 
standing on his own side of the street and claiming It, 
or even sitting down and writing a deed for it. 

But next the President tells us the Congress of the 
United States understood the State of Texas they ad- 
mitted into the Union to extend beyond the Nueces. 
Well, I suppose they did. I certainly so understood it. 
But how far beyond? That Congress did not under- 
stand it to extend clear to the Rio Grande is quite 
certain, by the fact of their joint resolutions for admis- 
sion expressly leaving all questions of boundary to 
future adjustment. And it may be added that Texas 
herself is proved to have had the same understanding 
of it that our Congress had, by the fact of the exact 
conformity of her new constitution to those resolu- 
tions. 



SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ig 

I am now through the whole of the President's evi- 
dence ; and it is a singular fact that if any one should 
declare the President sent the army into the midst of a 
settlement of Mexican people who had never submitted, 
by consent or by force, to the authority of Texas or of 
the United States, and that there and thereby the first 
blood of the war was shed, there is not one word in all 
the President has said which would either admit or 
deny the declaration. This strange omission it does 
seem to me could not have occurred but by design. 
My way of living leads me to be about the courts of 
justice; and there I have sometimes seen a good lawyer, 
struggling for his client's neck in a desperate case, em- 
ploying every artifice to work round, befog, and cover 
up with many words some point arising in the case 
which he dared not admit and yet could not deny. 
Party bias may help to make it appear so, but with all 
the allowance I can make for such bias, it still does 
appear to me that just such, and from just such neces- 
sity, is the President's struggle in this case. 

Some time after my colleague [Mr. Richardson] in- 
troduced the resolutions I have mentioned, I introduced 
a preamble, resolution, and interrogations, intended to 
draw the President out, if possible, on this hitherto 
untrodden ground. To show their relevancy, I propose 
to state my understanding of the true rule for ascer- 
taining the boundary between Texas and Mexico. It 
is that wherever Texas was exercising jurisdiction was 
hers; and wherever Mexico was exercising jurisdiction 
was hers; and that whatever separated the actual exer- 
cise of jurisdiction of the one from that of the other 
was the true boundary between them. If, as is prob- 
ably true, Texas was exercising jurisdiction along the 
western bank of the Nueces, and Mexico was exercising 
it along the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, then 
neither river was the boundary; but the uninhabited 
country between the two was. The extent of our ter- 
ritory in that region depended not on any treaty- 



20 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it), but 
on revolution. Any people anywhere being inclined 
and having the power have the right to rise up and 
shake off the existing government, and form a new 
one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, 
a most sacred right — a right which we hope and be- 
lieve is to liberate the world. Nor is this right con- 
fined to cases in which the whole people of an existing 
government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of 
such people that can may revolutionize and make their 
own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More 
than this, a majority of any portion of such people may 
revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled 
with or near about them, who may oppose this move- 
ment. Such minority was precisely the case of the 
Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revo- 
lutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to break 
up both, and make new ones. 

As to the country now in question, we bought it of 
France in 1803, and sold it to Spain in 1819, according 
to the President's statements. After this, all Mexico, 
including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and 
still later Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In 
my view, just so far as she carried her resolution by 
obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling, submission 
of the people, so far the country was hers, and no far- 
ther. Now, sir, for the purpose of obtaining the very 
best evidence as to whether Texas had actually carried 
her revolution to the place where the hostilities of 
the present war commenced, let the President answer 
the interrogatories I proposed, as before mentioned, 
or some other similar ones. Let him answer fully, 
fairly, and candidly. Let him answer with facts and 
not with arguments. Let him remember he sits where 
Washington sat, and so remembering, let him answer 
as Washington would answer. As a nation should not, 
and the Almighty will not, be evaded, so let him at- 
tempt no evasion — no equivocation. And if, so answer- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOL>J. 2l 

ing, he can show that the soil was ours where the first 
blood of the war was shed, — that it was not within an 
inhabited country, or, if within such, that the inhabi- 
tants had submitted themselves to the civil authority 
of Texas or of the United States, and that the same is 
true of the site of Fort Brown, — then I am with him for 
his justification. In that case I shall be most happy to 
reverse the vote I gave the other day. I have a selfish 
motive for desiring that the President may do this — I 
expect to gain some votes, in connection with the war, 
which, without his so doing, will be of doubtful pro- 
priety in my own judgment, but which will be free 
from the doubt if he does so. But if he can not or will 
not do this, — if on any pretense or no pretense he shall 
refuse or omit it — then I shall be fully convinced of 
what I more than suspect already — that he is deeply 
conscious of being in the wrong; that he feels the blood 
of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to Heaven 
against him ; that originally having some strong mo- 
tive — what, I will not stop now to give my opinion con- 
cerning — to involve the two countries in a war, and 
trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing the public gaze 
upon the exceeding brightness of military glory, — that 
attractive rainbow that rises in shov/ers of blood — ■ 
that serpent's eye that charms to destroy, — he plunged 
into it, and has swept on and on till, disappointed in 
his calculation of the ease with which Mexico might 
be subdued, he now finds himself he knows not where. 
How like the half-insane mumbling of a fever dream is 
the whole war part of his late message! At one time 
telling us that Mexico has nothing whatever that we 
can get but territory ; at another showing us how we 
can support the war by levying contributions on 
Mexico. At one time urging the national honor, the 
security of the future, the prevention of foreign inter- 
ference, and even the good of Mexico herself as among 
the objects of the war; at another telling us that "to 
reject indemnity, by refusing to accept a cession of 



22 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

territory, would be to abandon all our just demands, 
and to wage the war bearing all its expenses, without 
a purpose or definite object." So then this national 
honor, security of the future, and everything but ter- 
ritorial indemnity maj^ be considered the no-purposes 
and indefinite objects of the war! But, having it now 
settled that territorial indemnity is the only object, we 
are urged to seize, by legislation here, all that he 
was content to take a few months ago, and the whole 
province of Lower California to boot, and to still carry 
on the war — to take all we are fighting for, and still 
fight on. Again, the President is resolved under all 
circumstances to have full territorial indemnity for 
the expenses of the war; but he forgets to tell us how 
we are to get the excess after those expenses shall 
have surpassed the value of the whole of the Mexican 
territory. So again, he insists that the separate 
national existence of Mexico shall be maintained; but 
he does not tell us how this can be done, after we shall 
have taken all her territory. Lest the questions I have 
suggested be considered speculative merely, let me be 
indulged a moment in trying to show they are not. 
The war has gone on some twenty months ; for the ex- 
penses of which, together with an inconsiderable old 
score, the President now claims about one half of the 
Mexican territory, and that by far the better half, so 
far as concerns our ability to make anything out of it. 
It is comparatively uninhabited; so that we could 
establish land offices in it, and raise some money in 
that way. But the other half is already inhabited, as 
I understand it, tolerably densely for the nature of the 
country, and all its lands, or all that are valuable, 
already appropriated as private property. How then 
are we to make anything out of these lands with this 
encumbrance on them? or how remove the encum- 
brance? I suppose no one would say we should kill 
the people, or drive them out, or make slaves of them ; 
or confiscate their property. How, then, can we make 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 23 

much out of this part of the territory? If the prosecu- 
tion of the war has in expenses already equaled the 
better half of the country, how long its future prose- 
cution will be in equaling the less valuable half is not a 
speculative, but a practical, question, pressing closely 
upon us. And yet it is a question which the President 
seems never to have thought of. As to the mode of 
terminating the war and securing peace, the President 
is equally wandering and indefinite. First, it is to 
be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in 
the vital parts of the enemy's country; and after ap- 
parently talking himself tired on this point, the Presi- 
dent drops down into a half-despairing tone, and tells 
us that " with a people distracted and divided by con- 
tending factions, and a government subject to con- 
stant changes by successive revolutions, the continued 
success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory 
peace." Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling 
the Mexican people to desert the counsels of their own 
leaders, and, trusting in our protestations, to set up a 
government from which we can secure a satisfactory 
peace; telling us that " this may become the only mode 
of obtaining such a peace." But soon he falls into 
doubt of this too ; and then drops back onto the already 
half-abandoned ground of " more vigorous prosecu- 
tion." All this shows that the President is in nowise 
satisfied with his own positions. First he takes up one, 
and in attempting to argue us into it he argues himself 
out of it, then seizes another and goes through the same 
process, and then, confused at being able to think of 
nothing new, he snatches up the old one again, which he 
has some time before cast off. His mind, taxed beyond 
its power, is running hither and thither, like some tor- 
tured creature on a burning surface, finding no posi- 
tion on which it can settle down and be at ease. 

Again, it is a singular omission in this message that 
it nowhere intimates when the President expects the 
war to terminate. At its beginning, General Scott was 



24 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

by this same President driven into disfavor, if not dis- 
grace, for intimating that peace could not be conquered 
in less than three or four months. But now, at the end 
of about twenty months, during which time our arms 
have given us the most splendid successes, every de- 
partment and every part, land and water, officers and 
privates, regulars and volunteers, doing all that men 
could do, and hundreds of things which it had ever be- 
fore been thought men could not do — after all this, this 
same President gives a long message, without showing 
us that as to the end he himself has even an imaginary 
conception. As I have before said, he knows not where 
he is. He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably 
perplered man. God grant he may be able to show 
there is not something about his conscience more pain- 
ful than all his mental perplexity. 



EULOGY ON HENRY CLAY. 

[The following is the substance of a laudatory Address, de- 
livered July 16, 1852, by Mr. Lincoln in the State House at 
Springfield, HI., on the life and distinguished services of Henry 
Clay, who died at Washington, D. C, on the 20th of the preced- 
ing month, in his seventy-fifth year. The Eulogy of the eloquent 
and eminent statesman is a well-reasoned and appreciative one, 
dwelling on Mr. Clay's great services to the nation tliroughout 
his lengthened and useful career, during which he wielded a 
potent as well as salutary influence in legislation. Mr. Lincoln, 
it will be seen, speaks justly and approvingly of Mr. Clay's dis- 
tinctive service in effecting the Missouri Compromise of 1850, a 
measure which, unhappily, was repealed four years later. The 
speech appeared at the time in the Illinois State Journal']. 

On the fourth day of July, 1776, the people of a few 
feeble and oppressed colonies of Great Britain, inhabit- 
ing a portion of the Atlantic coast of North America, 
publicly declared their national independence, and 
made their appeal to the justice of their cause and to 
the God of battles for the maintenance of that declara- 
tion. That people were few in number and without re- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLNf. 25 

sources, save only their wise heads and stout hearts. 
Within the first year of that declared independence, 
and while its maintenance was yet problematical, — 
while the bloody struggle between those resolute rebels 
and their haughty would-be masters was still waging, 
— of undistinguished parents and in an obscure district 
of one of those colonies Henry Clay was born. The in- 
fant nation and the infant child began the race of life 
together. For three quarters of a century they have 
traveled hand in hand. They have been companions 
ever. The nation has passed its perils, and it is free, 
prosperous, and powerful. The child has reached his 
manhood, his middle age, his old age, and is dead. In 
all that has concerned the nation the man ever sympa- 
thized; and now the nation mourns the man. 

Henry Clay was born on the twelfth day of April, 
1777, in Hanover County, Virginia. Of his father, who 
died in the fourth or fifth year of Henry's age, little 
seems to be known, except that he was a respectable 
man and a preacher of the Baptist persuasion. Mr. 
Clay's education to the end of life was comparatively 
limited. I say " to the end of life," because I have un- 
derstood that from time to time he added something 
to his education during the greater part of his whole 
life. Mr. Clay's lack of a more perfect early education, 
however it may be regretted generally, teaches at least 
one profitable lesson : it teaches that in this country 
one can scarcely be so poor but that, if he will, he can 
acquire sufBcient education to get through the world 
respectably. In his twenty-third year Mr. Clay was 
licensed to practise law, and emigrated to Lexington, 
Kentucky. Here he commenced and continued the 
practice till the year 1803, when he was first elected to 
the Kentucky legislature. By successive elections he 
was continued in the legislature till the latter part of 
180G, when he was elected to fill a vacancy of a single 
session in the United States Senate. In 1807 he was 



20 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

again elected to the Kentucky House of Representa- 
tives, and by that body chosen Speaker. In 1808 he 
was reelected to the same body. In 1809 he was again 
chosen to fill a vacancy of two years in the United 
States Senate. In 1811 he was elected to the United 
States House of Representatives, and on the first day 
of taking his seat in that body he was chosen its 
Speaker. In 1813 he was again elected Speaker. 
Early in 1814, being the period of our last British war, 
Mr. Clay was sent as commissioner, with others, to 
negotiate a treaty of peace, which treaty was concluded 
in the latter part of the same year. On his return 
from Europe he was again elected to the lower branch 
of Congress, and on taking his seat in December, 1815, 
was called to his old post — the Speaker's chair, a posi- 
tion in which he was retained by successive elections, 
with one brief intermission, till the inauguration of 
John Quincy Adams, in March, 1825. He was then ap- 
pointed Secretary of State, and occupied that im- 
portant station till the inauguration of General Jack- 
son, in March, 1829. After this he returned to 
Kentucky, resumed the practice of law, and continued 
it till the autumn of 1831, when he was by the legisla- 
ture of Kentucky again placed in the United States 
Senate. By a reelection he was continued in the 
Senate till he resigned his seat and retired, in March, 
1848. In December, 1849, he again took his seat in the 
Senate, which he again resigned only a few months be- 
fore his death. 

By the foregoing it is perceived that the period from 
the beginning of Mr. Clay's official life in 1803 to the 
end of 1852 is but one year short of half a century, and 
that the sum of all the intervals in it will not amount 
to ten years. But mere duration of time in ofiice con- 
stitutes the smallest part of Mr. Clay's history. 
Throughout that long period he has constantly been 
the most loved and most implicitly followed by friends, 
and the most dreaded by opponents, of all living Ameri- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 27 

can politicians. In all the great questions which have 
agitated the country, and particularly in those fearful 
crises, the Missouri question, the nullification question, 
and the late slavery question, as connected with the 
newly acquired territory, involving and endangering 
the stability of the Union, his has been the leading and 
most conspicuous part. In 1824 he was first a candi- 
date for the Presidency, and was defeated ; and al- 
though he was successively defeated for the same oflQce 
in 1832 and in 1844, there has never been a moment 
since 1824 till after 1848 when a very large portion of 
the American people did not cling to him with an 
enthusiastic hope and purpose of still elevating him to 
the Presidency. AYitli other men, to be defeated was 
to l3e forgotten; but with him defeat was but a trifling 
incident, neither changing him nor the world's esti- 
mate of him. Even those of both political parties who 
have been preferred to him for the highest office have 
run far briefer courses than he, and left him still shin- 
ing high in the heavens of the political world. Jack- 
son, Van Buren, Harrison, Polk, and Taylor all rose 
after, and set long before him. The spell — the long- 
enduring spell — with which the souls of men were 
bound to him is a miracle. Who can compass it? It 
is probably true he owed his preeminence to no one 
quality, but to a fortunate combination of several. He 
was surpassingly eloquent; but many eloquent men 
fail utterly, and they are not, as a class, generally 
successful. His judgment was excellent; but many 
men of good judgment live and die unnoticed. His 
will was indomitable; but this quality often secures to 
its owner nothing better than a character for useless 
obstinacy. These, then, were Mr. Clay's leading quali- 
ties. No one of them is very uncommon ; but all to- 
gether are rarely combined in a single individual, and 
this is probably the reason why such men as Henry 
Clay are so rare in the world. 

Mr Clay's eloquence did not consist, as many fine 



28 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

specimens of eloquence do, of types and figures, of 
antithesis and elegant arrangement of words and sen- 
tences, but rather of that deeply earnest and impas- 
sioned tone and manner which can proceed only from 
great sincerity, and a thorough conviction in the 
speaker of the justice and importance of his cause. 
This it is that truly touches the chords of sympathy ; 
and those who heard Mr. Clay never failed to be moved 
by it, or ever afterward forgot the impression. All 
his efforts were made for practical effect. He never 
spoke merely to be heard. He never delivered a Fourth 
of July oration, or a eulogy on an occasion like this. 
As a politician or statesman, no one was so habitually 
careful to avoid all sectional ground. Whatever he 
did he did for the whole country. In the construction 
of his measures, he ever carefully surveyed every part 
of the field, and duly weighed every conflicting interest. 
Feeling as he did, and as the truth surely is, that the 
world's best hope depended on the continued Union of 
these States, he was ever jealous of and watchful for 
whatever might have the slightest tendency to separate 
them. 

Mr. Clay's predominant sentiment, from first to last, 
was a deep devotion to the cause of human liberty — a 
strong sympathy with the oppressed everywhere, and 
an ardent wish for their elevation. With him this was 
a primary and all-controlling passion. Subsidiary 
to this was the conduct of his whole life. He loved 
his country partly because it was his own country, 
and mostly because it was a free country; and he 
burned with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity, 
and glory, because he saw in such the advancement, 
prosperit}^ and glory of human liberty, human right, 
and human nature. He desired the prosperity of his 
countrymen, partly because they were his countrymen, 
but chiefly to show to the world that free men could be 
prosperous. 

That his views and measures were always the wisest 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 29 

needs not to be affirmed; nor should it be on this oc- 
casion, where so many thinliing differently join in 
doing honor to his memory. A free people in times of 
peace and quiet — when pressed by no common danger 
• — naturally divide into parties. At such times the 
man who is of neither party is not, cannot be, of any 
consequence. Mr. Clay therefore was of a party. Tak- 
ing a prominent part as he did, in all the great political 
questions of his country for the last half century, the 
wisdom of his course on many is doubted and denied 
by a large portion of his countrymen ; and of such it is 
not now proper to speak particularly. But there are 
many others, about his course upon which there is little 
or no disagreement amongst intelligent and patriotic 
Americans. Of these last are the war of 1812, the 
Missouri question, nullification, and the now recent 
compromise measures. In 1812 Mr. Clay, though not 
unknown, was still a young man. Whether we should 
go to war with Great Britain being the question of the 
day, a* minority opposed the declaration of war by 
Congress, while the majority, though apparently in- 
clined to war, had for years wavered, and hesitated to 
act decisively. Meanwhile British aggressions multi- 
plied, and grew more daring and aggravated. By Mr. 
Clay more than any other man the struggle was 
brought to a decision in Congress. The question, 
being now fully before Congress, came up in a variety 
of ways in rajiid succession, on most of which occasions 
Mr. Clay spoke. Adding to all the logic of which the 
subject was susceptible that noble inspiration which 
came to him as it came to no other, he aroused and 
nerved and inspired his friends, and confounded and 
bore down all opposition. Several of his speeches on 
these occasions were reported and are still extant, but 
the best of them all never was. During its delivery 
the reporters forgot their vocations, dropped their 
pens, and sat enchanted from near the beginning to 
quite the close. The speech now lives only in the mem- 



30 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ory of a few old men, and the enthusiasm with which 
they cherish their recollection of it is absolutely as- 
tonishing. The precise language of this speech we 
shall never know; but we do know — we cannot help 
knowing — that with deep pathos it pleaded the cause 
of the injured sailor, that it invoked the genius of the 
Kevolution, that it apostrophized the names of Otis, 
of Henry, and of Washington, that it appealed to the 
interest, the pride, the honor, and the glory of the na- 
tion, that it shamed and taunted the timidity of friends, 
that it scorned and scouted and withered the temerity 
of domestic foes, that it bearded and defied the British 
lion, and, rising and swelling and maddening in its 
course, it sounded the onset, till the charge, the shock, 
the steady struggle, and the glorious victory all passed 
in vivid review before the entranced hearers. 

Important and exciting as was the war question of 
1812, it never so alarmed the sagacious statesmen of 
the country for the safety of the Republic as afterward 
did the Missouri question. This sprang from that un- 
fortunate source of discord — negro slavery. When our 
Federal Constitution was adopted, we owned no terri- 
tory beyond the limits or ownership of the States, ex- 
cept the territory northwest of the River Ohio and east 
of the Mississippi. What has since been formed into 
the States of Maine, Kentucky, and Tennessee, was, I 
believe, within the limits of or owned by Massachusetts, 
Virginia, and North Carolina. As to the Northwestern 
Territory, provision had been made even before the 
■adoption of the Constitution that slavery should never 
go there. On the admission of States into the Union, 
carved from the territory we owned before the Con- 
stitution, no question, or at most no considerable ques- 
tion, arose about slavery — those which were within the 
limits of or owned by the old States following re- 
spectively the condition of the parent State, and those 
within the Northwest Territory following the pre- 
viously made provision. But in 1803 we purchased 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLK. 3;^ 

Louisiana of the French, and it included with much 
more what has since been formed into the State of 
Missouri. With regard to it, nothing had been done to 
forestall the question of slavery. ^Mien. therefore, in 
1819, Missouri, having formed a State constitution, 
without excluding slavery, and with slavery already 
actually existing within its limits, knocked at the door 
of the Union for admission, almost the entire repre- 
sentation of the non-slaveholding States objected. A 
fearful and angry struggle instantly followed. This 
alarmed thinking men more than any previous ques- 
tion, because, unlike all the former, it divided the 
country by geographical lines. 

Mr. Clay was in Congress, and, perceiving the danger, 
at once engaged his whole energies to avert it. It 
began, as I have said, in 1819; and it did not terminate 
till 1821. Missouri would not yield the point; and 
Congress — that is, a majority in Congress — by repeated 
votes showed a determination not to admit the State 
unless it should yield. After several failures and great 
labor on the part of Mr. Clay to so present the ques- 
tion that a majority could consent to the admission, it 
was by a vote rejected, and as all seemed to think, 
finally. A sullen gloom hung over the nation. All felt 
that the rejection of Missouri was equivalent to a 
dissolution of the Union, because those States which 
already had what ^Missouri was rejected for refusing 
to relinquish would go with Missouri. All deprecated 
and deplored this, but none saw how to avert it. For 
the judgment of members to be convinced of the neces- 
sity of yielding was not the whole difficulty; each had 
a constituency to meet and to answer to. Mr. Clay, 
though worn down and exhausted, was appealed to by 
members to renew his efforts at compromise. He did 
so, and by some judicious modifications of his plan, 
coupled with laborious efforts with individual members, 
and his own overmastering eloquence upon that floor, 
he finally secured the admission of the State. Brightly 



32 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and captivating as it had previously shown, it was 
now perceived that his great eloquence was a mere 
embellishment, or at most but a helping hand to his 
inventive genius, and his devotion to his country in 
the day of her extreme peril. 

After the settlement of the Missouri question, al- 
though a portion of the American people have differed 
with Mr. Clay, and a majority even appear generally 
to have been opposed to him on questions of ordinary 
administration, he seems constantly to have been re- 
garded by all as the man for a crisis. Accordingly, in 
the days of nullification, and more recently in the re- 
appearance of the slavery question connected with our 
territory newly acquired of Mexico, the task of devis- 
ing a mode of adjustment seems to have been cast 
upon Mr. Clay by common consent — and his perform- 
ance of the task in each case was little else than a 
literal fulfilment of the public expectation. 

Mr. Clay's efforts in behalf of the South Americans, 
and afterward in behalf of the Greeks, in the times of 
their respective struggles for civil liberty, are among 
the finest on record, upon the noblest of all themes, 
and bear ample corroboration of what I have said was 
his ruling passion— a love of liberty and right, un- 
selfishly, and for their own sakes. 

Having been led to allude to domestic slavery so fre- 
quently already, I am unwilling to close without re- 
ferring more particularly to Mr. Clay's views and con- 
duct in regard to it. He ever was on principle and in 
feeling opposed to slavery. The very earliest, and one 
of the latest, public efforts of his life, separated by a 
period of more than fifty years, were both made in 
favor of gradual emancipation. He did not perceive 
that on a question of human right the negroes were 
to be excepted from the human race. And yet Mr. Clay 
Was the owner of slaves. Cast into life when slavery 
was already widely spread and deeply seated, he did 
not perceive, as I think no wise man has perceived, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 33 

how it could be at once eradicated without producing 
a greater evil even to the cause of human liberty itself. 
His feeling and his judgment, therefore, ever led him to 
oppose both extremes of opinion on the subject. Those 
who would shiver into fragments the Union of these 
States, tear to tatters its now venerated Constitution, 
and even burn the last copy of the Bible, rather than 
slavery should continue a single hour, together with 
all their more halting sympathizers, have received, 
and are receiving, their just execration; and the name 
and opinions and influence of Mr. Clay are fully and, 
as I trust, efl'ectually and enduringly arrayed against 
them. But I would also, if I could, array his name, 
opinions, and influence against the opposite extreme — 
against a few but an increasing number of men who, 
for the sake of perpetuating slavery, are beginning to 
assail and to ridicule the white man's charter of free- 
dom, the declaration that " all men are created free 
and equal." So far as I have learned, the first 
American of any note to do or attempt this was the late 
John C. Calhoun; and if I mistake not, it soon after 
found its way into some of the messages of the Gov- 
ernor of South Carolina. We, however, look for and 
are not much shocked by political eccentricities and 
heresies in South Carolina. 

But Henry Clay is dead. His long and eventful life 
is closed. Our country is prosperous and powerful ; 
but could it have been quite all it has been, and is, and 
is to be, without Henry Clay? Such a man the times 
have demanded, and such in the providence of God 
was given us. But he is gone. Let us strive to deserve, 
as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine 
Providence, trusting that in future national emergen- 
cies He will not fail to provide us the instruments of 
safety and security. 
3 



34 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES. 

[In the subjoined speech of Mr. Lincoln's, delivered at Peoria, 
111., Oct. 16, 1854, in reply to Judge Stephen A. Douglas, after- 
ward Democratic Senator from Illinois, we have the begin- 
nings of a series of notable debates, which marked especially 
the year 1858, when the two men were to engage in a close 
and exciting contest for a United States Senatorship, and at 
the same time thresh out, on opposite sides, the great slavery 
question, in the struggle soon afterwards to ensue between North 
and South for sectional supremacy. What immediately pre- 
cipitated the oratorical strife between these two political adver- 
saries and gladiators of debate was the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, the result of the passing in Congress of the 
Douglas Act for the organization of the Territories of Kansas 
and Nebraska, with the proviso that they should be free to 
regulate their domestic institutions (including the vexed and 
menacing slavery question) each in its o\Aai way, subject only to 
the Constitution of the United States. On this ground, that of 
popular, or " squatter," sovereignty, as it was at the period called, 
Douglas was a candidate for the Presidency in 1852, in 1856, 
and again in 1860 against Lincoln, whom two years before he 
had beaten in the race for the U. S. Senatorship. In the final 
outcome, it is only fair here to state, what must be known to all, 
that Senator Douglas reconsidered, and afterwards practically 
withdrew, his extreme views of local self-government, when he 
saw to what they logically and of necessity led ; and that to the 
close of his life, in 1861, he remained ever staunchly loyal to 
the Union, while he reprobated Secession and the dissevering 
doctrine of State-rights. In Mr. Lincoln's case, we all know 
also, what honor and preferment were his in consequence of his 
taking the line he did in opposition to Judge Douglas; and 
though, in 1858, he lost the Senatorship from his State, his 
candidature and the fame he gained throughout the country by 
championing so ably the anti-slavery cause and that of the 
integrity of the nation, were compensations he well won, together 
with his subsequent elevation to the Chief Magistracy]. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 35 



SPEECH AT PEORIA, ILL. (OCT. 16, 1854 ) IN 
REPLY TO SENATOR STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 

I INSIST that if there is anything which it is the 
duty of the whole people never to intrust to anv hands 
but their own, that thing is the preservation and per- 
petuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if 
they shall think, as I do, that the extension of slavery 
endangers them more than any or all other causes, how 
recreant to themselves if they submit the question, and 
with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of 
men bent only on self-interest. If this question of 
slavery extension were an insignificant one — one hav- 
ing no power to do harm — it might be shuffled aside in 
this way; and being, as it is, the great Behemoth of 
danger, shall the strong grip of the nation be loosened 
upon him, to intrust him to the hands of such feeble 
keepers ? 

But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving meas- 
ure. Well, I too go for saving the Union. Much as I 
hate slavery, I would consent to the extension of it 
rather than see the L^nion dissolved, just as I would 
consent to any great evil to avoid a greater one. But 
when I go to Union-saving, I must believe, at least, 
that the means I employ have some adaptation to the 
end. To my mind, Nebraska has no such adaptation. 

It hath no relish of salvation in it. 

It is an aggravation, rather, of the only one thing which 
ever endangers the Union. When it came upon us, all 
was peace and quiet. The nation was looking to the 
forming of new bonds of union, and a long course of 
peace and prosperity seemed to lie before us. In the 
whole range of possibility, there scarcely appears to me 



30 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to have been anything out of which the slavery agita- 
tion could have been revived, except the very project of 
repealing the Missouri Compromise. Every inch of 
territory we owned already had a definite settlement of 
the slavery question, by which all parties were pledged 
to abide. Indeed, there was no uninhabited country on 
the continent which we could acquire, if we except 
some extreme northern regions which are wholly out 
of the question. 

In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself 
could scarcely have invented a way of again setting us 
by the ears but by turning back and destroying the 
peace measures of the past. The counsels of that 
Genius seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Com- 
promise was repealed ; and here we are in the midst of 
a new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have never 
seen before. Who is responsible for this? Is it those 
who resist the measure, or those who causelessly 
brought it forward and pressed it through, having 
reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must and would 
be so resisted? It could not but be expected by its 
author that it would be looked upon as a measure for 
the extension of slavery, aggravated by a gross breach 
of faith. 

Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the 
naked front and aspect of the measure. And in this 
aspect it could not but produce agitation. Slavery is 
founded in the selfishness of man's nature — opposition 
to it in his love of justice. These principles are an 
eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision 
so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks 
and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. 
Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compro- 
mises, repeal the Declaration of Independence, repeal 
all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. 
It still will be the abundance of man's heart that 
slavery extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of 
his heart his mouth will continue to speak. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 37 

The structure, too, of the Nebraska bill is very pecu- 
liar. The people are to decide the question of slavery 
for themselves; but when they are to decide, or how 
they are to decide, or whether, when the question is. 
once decided, it is to remain so or is to be subject to an 
indefinite succession of new trials, the law does not 
say. Is it to be decided by the first dozen settlers who 
arrive there, or is it to await the arrival of a hundred? 
Is it to be decided by a vote of the people or a vote of 
the legislature, or, indeed, by a vote of any sort? To 
these questions the law gives no answer. There is a 
mystery about this; for when a member proposed to 
give the legislature express authority to exclude 
slavery, it was hooted down by the friends of the bill. 
This fact is worth remembering. Some Yankees in the 
East are sending emigrants to Nebraska to exclude 
slavery from it; and, so far as I can judge, they expect 
the question to be decided by voting in some way or 
other. But the Missourians are awake, too. They 
are within a stone's-throw of the contested ground. 
They hold meetings and pass resolutions, in which not 
the slightest allusion to voting is made. They resolve 
that slavery already exists in the Territory; that more 
shall go there; that they, remaining in Missouri, will 
protect it, and that Abolitionists shall be hung or 
driven away. Through all this bowie-knives and six- 
shooters are seen plainly enough, but never a glimpse 
of the ballot-box. 

And, really, what is the result of all this? Each 
party within having numerous and determined backers 
without, is it not probable that the contest will come 
to blows and bloodshed? Could there be a more apt in- 
vention to bring about collision and violence on the 
slavery question than this Nebraska project is? I do 
not charge or believe that such was intended by Con- 
gress ; but if they had literally formed a ring and placed 
champions within it to fight out the controversy, the 
fight could be no more likely to come off than it is. 



38 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

And if this figlit should begin, is it likely to take a very 
peaceful Union-saving turn? Will not the first drop 
of blood so shed be the real knell of the Union? 

The Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. For 
the sake of the Union, it ought to be restored. We 
ought to elect a House of Representatives which will 
vote its restoration. If by any means we omit to do 
this, what follows? Slavery may or may not be es- 
tablished in Nebraska. But whether it be or not, we 
shall have repudiated — discarded from the councils of 
the nation — the spirit of compromise ; for who, after 
this, will ever trust in a national compromise? The 
spirit of mutual concession — that si^irit which first 
gave us the Constitution, and which has thrice saved 
the Union — we shall have strangled and cast from us 
forever. And what shall we have in lieu of it? The 
South fiushed with triumph and tempted to excess; 
the North, betrayed as they believe, brooding on wrong 
and burning for revenge. One side will provoke, the 
other resent. The one will taunt, the other defy; one 
aggresses, the other retaliates. Already a few in the 
North defy all constitutional restraints, resist the exe- 
cution of the fugitive-slave law, and even menace the 
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. 
Already a few in the South claim the constitutional 
right to take and to hold slaves in the free States — de- 
mand the revival of the slave-trade — and demand a 
treaty with Great Britain by which fugitive slaves 
may be reclaimed from Canada. As yet they are but 
few on either side. It is a grave question for lovers of 
the Union, whether the final destruction of the Missouri 
Compromise, and with it the spirit of all compromise, 
will or will not embolden and embitter each of these, 
and fatally increase the number of both. 

But restore the compromise, and what then? We 
thereby restore the national faith, the national con- 
fidence, the national feeling of brotherhood. We there- 
by reinstate the spirit of concession and compromise, 



SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 39 

that spirit wliicli has never failed us in past perils, and 
which may be safely trusted for all the future. The 
South ought to join in doing this. The peace of the 
nation is as dear to them as to us. In memories of the 
past and hopes of the future, they share as largely as 
we. It would be on their part a great act — great in its 
spirit, and great in its effect. It would be worth to the 
nation a hundred year's purchase of peace and pros- 
perity. And what of sacrifice would they make? They 
only surrender to us what they gave us for a considera- 
tion long, long ago ; what they have not now asked for, 
struggled or cared for ; what has been thrust upon them, 
not less to their astonishment than to ours. 

But it is said we cannot restore it; that though we 
elect every member of the lower House, the Senate is 
still against us. It is quite true that of the senators 
who passed the Nebraska bill, a majority of the whole 
Senate will retain their seats in spite of the elections of 
this and the next year. But if at these elections their 
several constituencies shall clearly express their will 
against Nebraska, will these senators disregard their 
will? Will they neither obey nor make room for those 
who will? 

But even if we fail to technically restore the com- 
promise, it is still a great point to carry a popular vote 
in favor of the restoration. The moral weight of such 
a vote cannot be estimated too highly. The authors 
of Nebraska are not at all satisfied with the destruction 
of the compromise — an indorsement of this principle 
they proclaim to be the great object. With them, Ne- 
braska alone is a small matter — to establish a principle 
for future use is what they particularly desire. 

The future use is to be the planting of slavery wher- 
ever in the wide world local and unorganized opposi- 
tion cannot prevent it. Now, if you wish to give them 
this indorsement, if you wish to establish this principle, 
do so. I shall regret it, but it is your right. On the 
contrary, if you are opposed to the principle, — intend 



40 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to give it no such indorsement, — let no wheedling, no 
sophistry, divert you from throwing a direct vote 
against it. 

Some men, mostly Whigs, who condemn the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, nevertheless hesitate to go 
for its restoration, lest they be thrown in company 
with the Abolitionists. Will they allow me, as an old 
Whig, to tell them, good-humoredly, that I think this 
is very silly? Stand with anybody that stands right. 
Stand with him while he is right, and part with him 
when he goes wrong. Stand with the Abolitionist in 
restoring the Missouri Compromise, and stand against 
him when he attempts to repeal the fugitive-slave law. 
In the latter case you stand with the Southern dis- 
unionist. What of that? you are still right. In both 
cases you are right. In both cases you expose the 
dangerous extremes. In both you stand on middle 
ground, and hold the ship level and steady. In both 
you are national, and nothing less than national. This 
is the good old Whig ground. To desert such ground 
because of any company, is to be less than a Whig — 
less than a man — less than an American. 

I particularly object to the new position which the 
avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery 
in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes 
that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one 
man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dal- 
liance for a free people — a sad evidence that, feeling 
prosperity, we forget right ; that liberty, as a principle, 
we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the 
fathers of the republic eschewed and rejected it. The 
argument of ^' necessity " was the only argument they 
ever admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so 
far only, as it carried them did they ever go. They 
found the institution existing among u*^, which they 
could not help, and they cast blame upon the British 
king for having permitted its introduction. Before the 
Constitution they prohibited its introduction into the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 41 

Northwestern Territory, the only country we owned 
then free from it. At the framing and adoption of the 
Constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the 
word " slave " or " slavery " in the whole instrument. 
In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave 
is spoken of as a " person held to serve or labor." In 
that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave-trade 
for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as " the migra- 
tion or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit," etc. 
These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus 
the thing is hid away in the Constitution, just as an 
afflicted man hides away a wen or cancer which he 
dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death, — with 
the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin 
at a certain time. Less than this our fathers could 
not do, and more they would not do. Necessity drove 
them so far, and further they would not go. But this 
is not all. The earliest Congress under the Constitu- 
tion took the same view of slavery. They hedged and 
hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity. 

In 1794 they prohibited an outgoing slave-trade — • 
that is, the taking of slaves from the United States to 
sell. In 1798 they prohibited the bringing of slaves 
from Africa into the Mississippi Territory, this Ter- 
ritory then comprising what are now the States of 
Mississippi and Alabama. This was ten years before 
they had the authority to do the same thing as to the 
States existing at the adoption of the Constitution. 
In 1800 they prohibited American citizens from trading 
in slaves between foreign countries, as, for instance, 
from Africa to Brazil. In 1803 they passed a law in 
aid of one or two slave-State laws, in restraint of the 
internal slave-trade. In 1807, in apparent hot haste, 
they passed the law, nearly a year in advance, — to take 
effect the first day of 1808, the very first day the Con- 
stitution would permit, — prohibiting the African slave- 
trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties. In 



42 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

1820, finding these provisions ineffectual, tliey declared 
the slave-trade piracy, and annexed to it the extreme 
penalty of death. While all this was passing in the 
General Government, five or six of the original slave 
States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation, 
by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct 
within their limits. Thus we see that the plain, un- 
mistakable spirit of that age toward slavery was hos- 
tility to the principle and toleration only by necessity. 
But now it is to be transformed into a '' sacred right." 
Nebraska brings it forth, places it on the highroad to 
extension and perpetuity, and with a pat on its back 
says to it, " Go, and God speed you." Henceforth it is 
to be the chief jewel of the nation — the very figure- 
head of the ship of state. Little by little, but steadily 
as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the 
old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we began 
by declaring that all men are created equal ; but now 
from that beginning we have run down to the other dec- 
laration, that for some men to enslave others is a 
" sacred right of self-government." These principles 
cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God 
and Mammon; and who ever holds to the one must 
despise the other. When Pettit, in connection with his 
support of the Nebraska bill, called the Declaration of 
Independence " a self-evident lie," he only did what con- 
sistency and candor require all other Nebraska men to 
do. Of the forty-odd Nebraska senators who sat pres- 
ent and heard him, no one rebuked him. Nor am I 
apprised that any Nebraska newspaper, or any Ne- 
braska orator, in the whole nation has ever yet rebuked 
him. If this had been said among Marion's men, 
Southerners though they were, what would have become 
of the man who said it? If this had been said to the 
men who captured Andre, the man who said it would 
probably have been hung sooner than Andre was. If it 
had been said in old Independence Hall seventy-eight 
years ago, the very doorkeeper would have throttled 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 43 

the man and thrust him into the street. Let no one be 
deceived. The spirit of seventj-six and the spirit of 
Nebraska are utter antagonisms; and the former is 
being rapidly displaced by the latter. 

Fellow-countrymen, Americans, South as well as 
North, shall we make no effort to arrest this? Already 
the liberal party throughout the world express the ap- 
prehension " that the one retrograde institution in 
America is undermining the principles of progress, and 
fatally violating the noblest political system the world 
ever saw." This is not the taunt of enemies, but the 
warning of friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it — to 
despise it? Is there no danger to liberty itself in dis- 
carding the earliest practice and first precept of our 
ancient faith? In our greedy chase to make profit of 
the negro, let us beware lest we " cancel and tear in 
pieces " even the white man's charter of freedom. 

Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. 
Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white in 
the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. Let us 
turn slavery from its claims of " moral right " back 
upon its existing legal rights and its arguments of 
'' necessity." Let us return it to the position our 
fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace. Let us 
readopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it 
the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let 
North and South — let all Americans — let all lovers of 
liberty everywhere join in the great and good work. If 
we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but 
we shall have so saved it as to make and to keep it for- 
ever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it 
that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the 
world over, shall rise up and call us blessed to the latest 
generations. 

At Springfield, twelve days ago, where I had spoken 
substantially as I have here. Judge Douglas replied to 
me ; and as he is to reply to me here, I shall attempt to 
anticipate him by noticing some of the points he made 



44 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

there. He commenced by stating I had assumed all 
the way through that the principle of the Nebraslja bill 
would have the effect of extending slavery. He denied 
that this was intended, or that this effect would follow. 

I will not reopen the argument upon this point. 
That such was the intention the world believed at the 
start, and will continue to believe. This was the count- 
enance of the thing, and both friends and enemies in- 
stantly recognized it as such. That countenance 
cannot now be changed by argument. You can as 
easily argue the color out of the negro's skin. Like the 
" bloody hand," you may wash it and wash it, the red 
witness of guilt still sticks and stares horribly at you. 

Next he says that congressional intervention never 
prevented slavery anywhere; that it did not prevent it 
in the Northwestern Territory, nor in Illinois; that, in 
fact, Illinois came into the Union as a slave State; 
that the principle of the Nebraska bill expelled it from 
Illinois, from several old States, from everywhere. 

Now this is mere quibbling all the way through. If 
the ordinance of '87 did not keep slavery out of the 
Northwest Territory, how happens it that the northwest 
shore of the Ohio River is entirely free from it, while 
the southeast shore, less than a mile distant, along 
nearly the whole length of the river, is entirely covered 
with it? 

If that ordinance did not keep it out of Illinois, what 
was it that made the difference between Illinois and 
Missouri? They lie side by side, the Mississippi River 
only dividing them while their early settlements were 
within the same latitude. Between 1810 and 1820, the 
number of slaves in Missouri increased 7211, while in 
Illinois in the same ten years they decreased 51. This 
appears by the census returns. During nearly all of 
that ten years both were Territories, not States. Dur- 
ing this time the ordinance forbade slavery to go into 
Illinois, and nothing forbade it to go into Missouri. 
It did go into Missouri, and did not go into Illinois. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 45 

That is the fact. Can any one doubt as to the reason of 
it? But he says Illinois came into the Union as a slave 
State. Silence, perhaps, would be the best answer to 
this flat contradiction of the known history of the 
country. What are the facts upon which this bold 
assertion is based? When we first acquired the 
country, as far back as 1787, there were some slaves 
within it held by the French inhabitants of Kaskaskia. 
The territorial legislation admitted a few negroes from 
the slave States as indentured servants. One year after 
the adoption of the first State constitution, the whole 
number of them was — what do you think? Just one 
hundred and seventeen, while the aggregate free popula- 
tion was 55,094, — about four hundred and seventy to 
one. Upon this state of facts the people framed their 
constitution prohibiting the further introduction of 
slavery, with a sort of guarantee to the owners of the 
few indentured servants, giving freedom to their chil- 
dren to be born thereafter, and making no mention 
whatever of any supposed slave for life. Out of this 
small matter the judge manufactures his argument that 
Illinois came into the Union as a slave State. Let the 
facts be the answer to the argument. 

The principles of the Nebraska bill, he says, expelled 
slavery from Illinois. The principle of that bill first 
planted it here — that is. it first came because there was 
no law to prevent it, first came before we owned the 
country; and finding it here, and having the ordinance 
of '87 to prevent its increasing, our people struggled 
along, and finally got rid of it as best they could. 

But the principle of the Nebraska bill abolished 
slavery in several of the old States. Well, it is true 
that several of the old States, in the last quarter of 
the last century, did adopt systems of gradual emanci- 
pation by which the institution has finally become ex- 
tinct within their limits; but it may or may not be true 
that the principle of the Nebraska bill was the cause 
that led to the adoption of these measures. It is now 



46' SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

more than fifty years since the last of these States 
adopted its system of emancipation. 

If the Nebraslia bill is the real author of the benevo- 
lent works, it is rather deplorable that it has for so long 
a time ceased working altogether. Is there not some 
reason to suspect that it was the principle of the 
Revolution, and not the principle of the Nebraska bill, 
that led to emancipation in these old States? Leave it 
to the people of these old emancipating States, and I 
am quite certain they will decide that neither that nor 
any other good thing ever did or ever will come of the 
Nebraska bill. 

In the course of my main argument, Judge Douglas 
interrupted me to say that fhe principle of the Nebraska 
bill was very old; that it originated when God made 
man, and placed good and evil before him, allowing 
him to choose for himself, being responsible for the 
choice he should make. At the time I thought this was 
merely playful, and I answered it accordingly. But 
in his reply to me he renewed it as a serious argument. 
In seriousness, then, the facts of this proposition are 
not true as stated. God did not place good and evil be- 
fore man, telling him to make his choice. On the con- 
trary, he did tell him there was one tree of the fruit of 
which he should not eat, upon pain of certain death. I 
should scarcely wish so strong a prohibition against 
slavery in Nebraska. 

But this argument strikes me as not a little remark- 
able in another particular — in its strong resemblance 
to the old argument for the " divine right of kings." 
By the latter, the king is to do just as he pleases with 
his white subjects, being responsible to God alone. T}j 
the former, the white man is to do just as he pleases 
with his black slaves, being responsible to God alone. 
The two things are precisely alike, and it is but natural 
that they should find similar arguments to sustain 
them. 

I had argued that the application of the principle of 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 47 

self-government, as contended for, would require the 
revival of the African slave-trade; that no argument 
could be made in favor of a man's right to take slaves 
to Nebraska, which could not be equally well made in 
favor of his right to bring them from the coast of 
Africa. The judge replied that the Constitution re- 
quires the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, but 
does not require the prohibition of slavery in the 
Territories. That is a mistake in point of fact. The 
Constitution does not require the action of Congress in 
either case, and it does authorize it in both. And so 
there is still no difference between the cases. 

In regard to what I have said of the advantage the 
slave States have over the free in the matter of repre- 
sentation, the judge replied that we in the free States 
count five free negroes as five white people, while in the 
slave States they count five slaves as three whites only; 
and that the advantage, at last, was on the side of the 
free States. 

Now, in the slave States they count free negroes just 
as we do; and it so happens that, besides their slaves, 
they have as many free negroes as we have, and thirty 
thousand over. Thus, their free negroes more than 
balance ours; and their advantage over us, in conse- 
quence of their slaves, still remains as I stated it. 

In reply to my argument that the compromise meas- 
ures of 1S50 were a system of equivalents, and that the 
provisions of no one of them could fairly be carried to 
other subjects without its corresponding equivalent 
being carried with it, the judge denied outright that 
these measures had any connection with or dependence 
upon each other. This is mere desperation. If they 
had no connection, why are they always spoken of in 
connection ? Why has he so spoken of them a thousand 
times? Why has he constantly called them a series of 
measures? Why does everybody call them a com- 
promise? Why was California kept out of the Union 
six or seven months, if it was not because of its con- 



48 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

nection with the other measures? Webster's leading 
definition of the verb '' to compromise " is " to adjust 
and settle a difference, by mutual agreement, with con- 
cessions of claims by the parties." This convejs pre- 
cisely the popular understanding of the word 
" compromise." 

We knew, before the judge told us, that these mea- 
sures passed separately, and in distinct bills, and that 
no tvro of them were passed by the votes of precisely 
the same members. But we also know, and so does he 
know, that no one of them could have passed both 
branches of Congress but for the understanding that 
the others were to pass also. Upon this understanding, 
each got votes which it could have got in no other way. 
It is this fact which gives to the measures their true 
character ; and it is the universal knowledge of this fact 
that has given them the name of " compromises," so 
expressive of that true character, 
laws to Nebraska, you could clear away other objec- 

I had asked " if, in carrying the Utah and New Mexico 
tion, how could you leave Nebraska ' perfectly free' to 
introduce slavery before she forms a constitution dur- 
ing her territorial government, while the Utah and New 
Mexico laws only authorize it when they form con- 
stitutions and are admitted into the Union? " To this 
Judge Douglas answered that the Utah and New 
Mexico laws also authorized it before ; and to prove 
this he read from one of their laws, as follows : " That 
the legislative power of said territory shall extend to all 
rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the Con- 
stitution of the United States and the provisions of 
this act." 

Now it is perceived from the reading of this that there 
is nothing express upon the subject, but that the 
authority is sought to be implied merely for the general 
provision of " all rightful subjects of legislation." In 
reply to this I insist, as a legal rule of construction, as 
well as the plain, popular view of the matter, that the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 49 

express provision for Utah and New Mexico coming in 
with slavery, if they choose, when they shall form con- 
stitutions, is an exclusion of all implied authority on 
the same subject; that Congress, having the subject 
distinctly in their minds when they made the express 
provision, they therein expressed their whole meaning 
on that subject. 

The judge rather insinuated that I had found it con- 
venient to forget the AVashington territorial law passed 
in 1853. This was a division of Oregon organizing the 
northern part as the Territory of Washington. He 
asserted that by this act the ordinance of '87, thereto- 
fore existing in Oregon, was repealed ; that nearly all 
the members of Congress voted for it, beginning in the 
House of Representatives with Charles Allen of Mass- 
achusetts, and ending with Richard Yates of Illinois; 
and that he could not understand how those who now 
oppose the Nebraska bill so voted there, unless it was 
because it was then too soon after both the great 
political parties had ratified the compromises of 1850, 
and the ratification therefore was too fresh to be then 
repudiated. 

Now I had seen the Washington act before, and I 
have carefully examined it since; and I aver that there 
is no repeal of the ordinance of '87, or of any pro- 
hibition of slavery, in it. In express terms, there is 
absolutely nothing in the whole law upon the subject — ■ 
in fact, nothing to lead a reader to think of the subject. 
To my judgment it is equally free from everything from 
which repeal can be legally implied; but however this 
may be, are men now to be entrapped by a legal impli- 
cation, extracted from covert language, introduced per- 
haps for the very purpose of entrapping them? I 
sincerely wish every man could read this law quite 
through, carefulh' watching every sentence and every 
line for a repeal of the ordinance of '87, or anything 
equivalent to it. 

Another point on the Washington act. If it was 
4 



50 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

intended to be modeled after the Utah and New Mexico 
acts, as Judge Douglas insists, why was it not inserted 
in it, as in them, that Washington was to come in with 
or without slavery as she may choose at the adoption of 
her constitution? It has no such provision in it ; and I 
defy the ingenuity of man to give a reason for the 
omission, other than that it was not intended to follow 
the Utah and New Mexico laws in regard to the ques- 
tion of slavery. 

The Washington act not only differs vitally from the 
Utah and New Mexico acts, but the Nebraska act differs 
vitally from both. By the latter act the people are left 
*' perfectly free " to regulate their own domestic con- 
cerns, etc. ; but in all the former, all their laws are to 
be submitted to Congress, and if disapproved are to be 
null. The Washington act goes even further; it abso- 
lutely prohibits the territorial legislature, by very 
strong and guarded language, from establishing banks 
or borrowing money on the faith of the Territory. Is 
this the sacred right of self-government we hear vaunted 
so much? No, sir; the Nebraska bill finds no model in 
the act of '50 or the Washington act. It finds no 
model in any law from Adam till to-day. As Phillips 
says of Napoleon, the Nebraska act is grand, gloomy 
and peculiar, wrapped in the solitude of its own 
originality, without a model and without a shadow 
upon the earth. 

In the course of his reply Senator Douglas remarked 
in substance that he had always considered this govern- 
ment was made for the white people and not for the 
negroes. Why, in point of mere fact, I think so too. 
But in this remark of the judge there is a significance 
which I think is the key to the great mistake (if there 
is any such mistake) which he has made in this Ne- 
braska measure. It shows that the judge has no very 
vivid impression that the negro is human, and conse- 
quently has no idea that there can be any moral ques- 
tion in legislating about him. In his view the question 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 51 

of whether a new country shall be slave or free, is a 
matter of as utter indifference as it is whether his 
neighbor shall plant his farm with tobacco or stock it 
with horned cattle. Now, whether this view is right or 
wrong, it is ver}^ certain that the great mass of mankind 
take a totally different view. They consider slavery a 
great moral wrong, and their feeling against it is not 
evanescent, but eternal. It lies at the very foundation 
of their sense of justice, and it cannot be trifled with. 
It is a great and durable element of popular action, 
and I think no statesman can safely disregard it. 

Our Senator also objects that those who oppose him 
in this matter do not entirely agree with one another. 
He reminds me that in my firm adherence to the con- 
stitutional rights of the slave States, I differ widely 
from others who are cooperating with me in opposing 
the Nebraska bill, and he says it is not quite fair to 
oppose him in this variety of ways. He should re- 
member that he took us by surprise — astounded us by 
this measure. We were thunderstruck and stunned, 
and we reeled and fell in utter confusion. But we rose, 
each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach — a 
scythe, a pitchfork, a chopping-ax, or a butcher's 
cleaver. We struck in the direction of the sound, and 
we were rapidly closing in upon him. He must not 
think to divert us from our purpose by showing us that 
our drill, our dress, and our weapons are not entirely 
perfect and uniform. When the storm shall be past he 
shall find us still Americans, no less devoted to the 
continued union and prosperity of the country than 
heretofore. 



52 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



THE HISTORIC " HOUSE-DIVIDED- AGAINST-IT- 
SELF » SPEECH, AT SPRINGFIELD, ILL., 
JUNE 16, 1858. 

[This notable speech was delivered at the close of the Re- 
publican State Convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln as the 
sole choice of the Illinois Republicans for the United States 
Senate. In it^ the future Liberator of the slave strongly and 
earnestly brought before the Convention and the entire Re- 
publican party the urgent need of facing the great issue then 
confronting the nation, that of Slavery, with its ever-augmenting 
agitation, and consequent menace and peril. That menace and 
peril, Lincoln shrewdly saw, threatened the stability of the 
Union, though he expressed no fear of its ultimate downfall, 
yet saw and advanced abundant reason for concerted action and 
effort, as well as for wise counsels, if the national house was to 
stand undivided and un-rent bj^ the contending forces and strife 
of the time. His now time-honored phrase is a memorable, 
as it was then an admonitory, one, that the " government cannot 
endure permanently half-slave and half- free]. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: If 
we could first know where we are, and whither we are 
tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to 
do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy 
was initiated with the avowed object and confident 
promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under 
the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only 
not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opin- 
ion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. " A house divided against itself 
cannot stand." I believe this government cannot en- 
dure permanently half slave and half free. I do not ex- 
pect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the 
house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either 
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread 
of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 5^ 

the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinc- 
tion ; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall 
become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as 
new, North as well as South. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 

Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that 
now almost complete legal combination — piece of 
machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska 
doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him con- 
sider not only what work the machinery is adapted to 
do, and how well adapted ; but also let him study the 
history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or 
rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design 
and concert of action among its chief architects, from 
the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from 
more than half the States by State constitutions, and 
from most of the national territory by congressional 
prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle 
which ended in repealing that congressional prohibi- 
tion. This opened all the national territory to slavery, 
and was the first point gained. 

But, so far, Congress only had acted ; and an indorse- 
ment by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable 
to save the point already gained and give chance for 
more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been 
provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argu- 
ment of " squatter sovereignty," otherwise called 
'" sacred right of self-government," which latter phrase, 
though expressive of the only rightful basis of any 
government, was so perverted in this attempted use of 
it as to amount to just this : That if any one man 
choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed 
to object. That argument was incorporated into the 
Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows : 
" It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to 
legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to 



54 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way, subject only to the Con- 
stitution of the United States." Then opened the roar 
of loose declamation in favor of '* squatter sovereignty " 
and '* sacred right of self-government." " But," said 
opposition members, " let us amend the bill so as to 
expressly declare that the people of the Territory may 
exclude slavery." " Not we," said the friends of the 
measure ; and down they voted the amendment. 

While the Nebraska bill was passing through Con- 
gress, a law case involving the question of a negro's 
freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily 
taken him first into a free State and then into a Terri- 
tory covered by the congressional prohibition, and held 
him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing 
through the United States Circuit Court for the District 
of Missouri ; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit were 
brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. 
The negro's name was Dred Scott, which name now 
designates the decision finally made in the case. Be- 
fore the then next presidential election, the law case 
came to and was argued in the Supreme Court of the 
United States; but the decision of it was deferred until 
after the election. Still, before the election, Senator 
Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the 
leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his 
opinion whether the people of a Territory can con- 
stitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the 
latter answered : " That is a question for the Supreme 
Court." 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and 
the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the 
second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell 
short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hun- 
dred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not over- 
whelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing 
President, in his last annual message, as impressively 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". '55 

as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and 
authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met 
again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a 
reargument. The presidential inauguration came, and 
still no decision of the court; but the incoming Presi- 
dent in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the 
people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever 
it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. 

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an 
early occasion to make a speech at this capital indors- 
ing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently de- 
nouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, 
seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to in- 
dorse and strongly construe that decision, and to ex- 
press his astonishment that any different view had ever 
been entertained ! 

At length a squabble springs up between the Presi- 
dent and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere 
question of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution 
was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of 
Kansas ; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all 
he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares 
not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do 
not understand his declaration that he cares not 
whether slavery be voted down or voted up to be in- 
tended by him other than as an apt definition of the pol- 
icy he would impress upon the public mind — the princi- 
ple for which he declares he has suffered so much, and 
is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to 
that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may 
he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of 
his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott 
decision '' squatter sovereignty " squatted out of exist- 
ence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding, — like 
the mold at the foundry, served through one blast and 
fell back into loose sand, — helped to carry an election, 
and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint 
struggle with the Kepublicans against the Lecompton 



56 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

constitution involves nothing of the original Nebraska 
doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the 
right of a people to make their own constitution — upon 
which he and the Republicans have never ditfered. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in con- 
nection with Senator Douglas's '' care not " policy, 
constitute the piece of machinery in its present state of 
advancement. This was the third point gained. The 
working points of that machinery are : 

(1) That no negro slave, imported as such from 
Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a 
citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in 
the Constitution of the United States. This point is 
made in order to deprive the negro in every possible 
event of the benefit of that provision of the United 
States Constitution which declares that " the citizens 
of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the several States." 

(2) That, " subject to the Constitution of the United 
States," neither Congress nor a territorial legislature 
can exclude slavery from any United States Territory. 
This point is made in order that individual men mav 
fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of 
losing them as property, and thus enhance the chances 
of permanency to the institution through all the future. 

(3) That whether the holding a negro in actual 
slavery in a free State makes him free as against the 
holder, the United States courts will not decide, but 
will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State 
the negro may be forced into by the master. This point 
is made not to be pressed immediately, but if acquiesced 
in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people 
at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion 
that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with 
Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every other 
master may lawfully do with any other one or one thou- 
sand slaves in Illinois or in any other free State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 5^ 

with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is 
to educate and mold public opinion, at least Northern 
public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted 
down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now 
are, and partially, also, whither we are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back 
and run the mind over the string of historical facts al- 
ready stated. Several things will now appear less dark 
jmd mysterious than they did when they were trans- 
piring. The people were to be left " perfectly free," 
" subject only to the Constitution." What the Con- 
stitution had to do with it outsiders could not then see. 
Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche for 
the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and de- 
clare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no 
freedom at all. Why was the amendment expressly de- 
claring the right of the people voted down? Plainly 
enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the 
niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the court 
decision held up? Why even a senator's individual 
opinion withheld till after the presidential election? 
Plainly enough now, the speaking out then would have 
damaged the '* perfectly free " argument upon which 
the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing Presi- 
dent's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay 
of a reargument? Why the incoming President's ad- 
vance exhortation in favor of the decision? These 
things look like the cautious patting and petting of a 
spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is 
dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the 
hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the Presi- 
dent and others? 

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adap- 
tations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a 
lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we 
know have been gotten out at different times and places 
and by different workmen, — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, 
and James, for instance, — and we see these timbers 



58 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

joined together, and see they exactly make the frame 
of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly 
fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the differ- 
ent pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, 
and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even 
scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the 
place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to 
bring such piece in — in such a case we find it impossible 
not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger 
and James all understood one another from the begin- 
ning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft 
drawn up before the first blow was struck. 

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska 
bill, the people of a State as well as Territory were to 
be left " perfectly free," " subject only to the constitu- 
tion." Why mention a State? They were legislating 
for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly 
the people of a State are and ought to be subject to 
the Constitution of the United States; but why is men- 
tion of this lugged into this merely territorial law? 
Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a 
State therein lumped together, and their relation to 
the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the 
same? While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice 
Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opin- 
ions of all the concurring judges, expressly declare 
that the Constitution of the United States neither per- 
mits Congress nor a territorial legislature to exclude 
slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit 
to declare whether or not the same Constitution per- 
mits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it. 
Possibly, this is a mere omission; but who can be quite 
sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the 
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people 
of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just as 
Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in be- 
half of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska 
bill — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 59 

have been voted down in the one case as it had been in 
the other? The nearest approach to the point of de- 
claring the power of a State over slavery is made by 
Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using 
the precise idea, and almost the language too, of the 
Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact language is : 
" Except in cases where the power is restrained by the 
Constitution of the United States, the law of the State 
is supreme over the subject of slavery within its juris- 
diction." In what cases the power of the States is so 
restrained by the United States Constitution is left an 
open question, precisely as the same question as to the 
restraint on the power of the Territories was left open 
in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and 
we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere 
long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision 
declaring that the Constitution of the United States 
does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its 
limits. And this may especially be expected if the 
doctrine of " care not whether slavery be voted down 
or voted up " shall gain upon the public mind suf- 
ficiently to give promise that such a decision can be 
maintained when made. 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being 
alike lawful in all the States. Welcome, or unwel- 
come, such decision is probably coming, and will soon 
be upon us, unless the power of the present political 
dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie 
down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri 
are on the verge of making their State free, and we 
shall awake to the reality instead that the Supreme 
Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and 
overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now 
before all those who would prevent that consummation. 
That is what we have to do. How can we best do it? 

There are those who denounce us openly to their own 
friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas 
is the aptest instrument there is with which, to effect 



60 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that object. They wish us to infer all from the fact 
that he now has a little quarrel with the present head 
of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with 
us on a single point upon which he and we have never 
differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and 
that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be 
granted. But " a living dog is better than a dead lion." 
Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at 
least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose 
the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about 
it. His avov.-ed mission is impressing the " public 
heart " to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas 
Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior" talent 
will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave- 
trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that 
trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he 
really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? 
For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of 
white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. 
Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to 
buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And 
unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa 
than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to 
reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere 
right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the 
foreign slave-trade. How can he refuse that trade in 
that " property " shall be " perfectly free," unless he 
does it as a protection to the home production? And 
as the home producers will probably not ask the pro- 
tection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposi- 
tion. 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may 
rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — that 
he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. 
But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that 
he will make any particular change of which he, him- 
self, has given no intimation? Can we safely base our 
action upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". Ql 

I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, 
question his motives, or do aught that can be personally 
offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can 
come together on principle so that our great cause may 
have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have 
interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he 
is not now with us — he does not pretend to be — he does 
not promise ever to be. 

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted 
by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are 
free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for 
the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the na- 
tion mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. 
We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a 
common danger, with every external circumstance 
against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile 
elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed 
and fought the battle through, under the constant hot 
fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did 
we brave all then to falter now? — now, when that same 
enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The 
result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand 
firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate 
or mistakes delaj^ it, but, sooner or later, the victory is 
sure to come. 



Q2 SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



SPEECH AT CHICAGO, ILL., JULY 10, 1858. 

[In this, and in the immediately following speech, delivered a 
week later at Springfield, 111., we have important utterances of 
Mr. Lincoln on the absorbing question of the time, both being, 
in part, and without collusion, rejoinders to Judge S. A. 
Douglas, who on both occasions had made immediately preceding 
addresses. The speeches, on both sides, created much en- 
thusiasm and directed the eyes of the State, and indeed of the 
nation, to the rival Illinois orators, and especially to Lincoln, 
who had dared to tackle the able and popular " little giant," 
and that with great plainness of speech as well as with admi- 
rable point and sound logic. The excitement the speeches oc- 
casioned led to the acceptance by Douglas of Lincoln's proposal 
that they should be heard in joint debate at a series of meet- 
ings over the State. These debates, which occupied seven dif- 
ferent evenings of three hours each, will be found in these 
pages, following the present address and that at Springfield, 
viz. those at Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, 
Quincy, and Alton, during the months of Aug., Sept., and Oct., 
1858]. 

Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent 
speech at Springfield. He says they are to be the 
issues of this campaign. The first one of these points 
he bases upon the language in a speech which I deliv- 
ered at Springfield, which I believe I can quote cor- 
rectly from memory. I said there that " we are 
now far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted 
for the avowed object and with the confident promise 
of putting an end to slavery agitation ; under the opera- 
tion of that policy, that agitation has not only not 
ceased, but has constantly augmented. I believe it will 
not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. ^ A house divided against itself cannot stand.' 
I believe this government cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union 
to be dissolved " — I am quoting from my speech — " I 
do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 53 

cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or 
all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will 
arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push 
it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, old as well as new, North as well as South." 

That is the paragraph ! In this paragraph which I 
have quoted in your hearing, and to which I ask the 
attention of all. Judge Douglas thinks he discovers 
great political heresy. I want your attention particu- 
larly to what he has inferred from it. He says I am in 
favor of making all the States of this Union uniform in 
all their internal regulations; that in all their domestic 
concerns I am in favor of making them entirely uni- 
form. He draws this inference from the language I 
have quoted to you. He says that I am in favor of mak- 
ing war by the North upon the South for the extinction 
of slavery; that I am also in favor of inviting (as he 
expresses it) the South to a war upon the North, for 
the purpose of nationalizing slavery. Now, it is singu- 
lar enough, if you will carefully read that passage over, 
that I did not say that I was in favor of anything in 
it. I only said what I expected would take place. I 
made a prediction only — it may have been a foolish one, 
perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that slavery 
should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do 
say so now, however, so there need be no longer any 
diflSculty about that. It may be written down in the 
great speech. 

Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this 
speech of mine was probably carefully prepared. I 
admit that it was. I am not master of language ; I 
have not a fine education ; I am not capable of entering 
into a disquisition upon dialectics, as I believe you call 
it ; but I do not believe the language I employed bears 
any such construction as Judge Douglas puts upon it. 
But I don't care about a quibble in regard to words. 



g4 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

I know what I meant, and I will not leave this crowd 
in doubt, if I can explain it to them, what I really 
meant in the use of that paragraph. 

I am not, in the first place, unaware that this govern- 
ment has endured eighty-two years half slave and 
half free. I know that I am tolerably well ac- 
quainted with the history of the country, and I know 
that it has endured eighty-two years half slave and half 
free. I believe — and that is what I meant to allude 
to there — I believe it has endured because during all 
that time, until the introduction of the Nebraska bill, 
the public mind did rest all the time in the belief that 
slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. That 
was what gave us the rest that we had through that 
period of eighty-two years; at least, so I believe. I 
have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any 
Abolitionist — I have been an old-line Whig — I have 
always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it 
until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska 
bill began. I always believed that everybody was 
against it, and that it was in course of ultimate extinc- 
tion. [Pointing to Mr. Browning, who stood near by.] 
Browning thought so; the great mass of the nation 
have rested in the belief that slavery was in course of 
ultimate extinction. They had reason so to believe. 

The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant 
history led the people to believe so, and that such was 
the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself. 
Why did those old men, about the time of the adoption 
of the Constitution, decree that slavery should not go 
into the new Territory, where it had not already gone? 
Why declare that within twenty years the African 
slave-trade, by which slaves are supplied, might be cut 
off by Congress? Why were all these acts? I might 
enumerate more of these acts — but enough. What 
were they but a clear indication that the framers of 
the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate 
extinction of that institution? And now, when I say,— 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Q^ 

as I said in mj speech that Judge Douglas has quoted 
from, — when I say that I think the opponents of slavery 
will resist the farther spread of it, and place it where 
the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in 
course of ultimate extinction, I only mean to say that 
the}' will place it where the founders of this govern- 
ment originally placed it. 

I have said a hundred times, and I have now no in- 
clination to take it back, that I believe there is no right 
and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free 
States to enter into the slave States and interfere with 
the question of slavery at all. I have said that always; 
Judge Douglas has heard me say it — if not quite a 
hundred times, at least as good as a hundred times; 
and when it is said that I am in favor of interfering 
with slavery where it exists, I know it is unwarranted 
by anything I have ever intended, and, as I believe, by 
anything I have ever said. If by any means I have ever 
used language which could fairly be so construed (as, 
however, I believe I never have), I now correct it. 

So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas 
draws, that I am in favor of setting the sections at 
war with one another. I know that I never meant any 
such thing, and I believe that no fair mind can infer 
any such thing from anything I have ever said. 

Now in relation to his inference that I am in favor 
of a general consolidation of all the local institutions of 
the various States. I will attend to that for a little 
while, and try to inquire, if I can, how on earth it 
could be that any man could draw such an inference 
from anything I said. I have said very many times in 
Judge Douglas's hearing that no man believed more 
than I in the principle of self-government; that it lies 
at the bottom of all my ideas of just government from 
beginning to end. I have denied that his use of that 
term applies properly. But for the thing itself I deny 
that any man has ever gone ahead of me in his devotion 
to tiie principle, whatever he may have done in effi- 
5 



gg SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ciency in advocating it. I think that I have said it in 
your hearing — that I believe each individual is natur- 
ally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the 
fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with 
any other man's rights; that each community, as a 
State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all 
the concerns within that State that interfere with the 
right of no other State ; and that the General Govern- 
ment, upon principle, has no right to interfere with 
anything other than that general class of things that 
does concern the whole. I have said that at all times. 
I have said as illustrations that I do not believe in the 
right of Illinois to interfere with the cranberry laws of 
Indiana, the oyster laws of Virginia, or the liquor laws 
of Maine. I have said these things over and over again, 
and I repeat them here as my sentiments. 

How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because 
I hope to see slavery put where the public mind shall 
rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction, that I am in favor of Illinois going over and 
interfering with the cranberry laws of Indiana? What 
can authorize him to draw an,y such inference? I sup- 
pose there might be one thing that at least enabled 
him to draw such an inference that would not be true 
with me or many others ; that is, because he looks upon 
all this matter of slavery as an exceedingly little 
thing — this matter of keeping one sixth of the popula- 
tion of the whole nation in a state of oppression and 
tyranny unequaled in the world. He looks upon it as 
being an exceedingly little thing, only equal to the 
question of the cranberry laws of Indiana — as some- 
thing having no moral question in it — as something on 
a par with the question of whether a man shall pasture 
his land with cattle or plant it with tobacco — so little 
and so small a thing that he concludes, if I could 
desire that anything should be done to bring about the 
ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be in 
favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. (57 

other little things in the Union. Xow, it so happens — 
and there, I presume, is the foundation of this mistake 
— that the judge thinks thus; and it so happens that 
there is a vast portion of the American people that do 
not look upon that matter as being this very little 
thing. Thev look upon it as a vast moral evil ; they can 
prove it as such by the writings of those who gave us 
the blessings of liberty which we enjoy, and that they so 
looked upon it, and not as an evil merely confining it- 
self to the States where it is situated; and while we 
agree that, by the Constitution we assented to, in the 
States where it exists w^e have no right to interfere with 
it, because it is in the Constitution, we are by both 
duty and inclination to stick by that Constitution in 
all its letter and spirit from beginning to end. 

So much, then, as to my disposition — my wish — to 
have all the State legislatures blotted out, and to have 
one consolidated government, and a uniformity of do- 
mestic regulations in all the States; by which I suppose 
it is meant, if we raise corn here, we must make sugar- 
cane grow here too, and we must make those which 
grow North grow in the South. All this I suppose he 
understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much 
for all this nonsense — for I must call it so. The judge 
can have no issue with me on a question of establishing 
uniformity in the domestic regulations of the States. 

A little now on the other point — the Dred Scott 
decision. Another of the issues he says that is to be 
made with me, is upon his devotion to the Dred Scott 
decision, and my opposition to it. 

I have expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my 
opposition to the Dred Scott decision ; but I should be 
allowed to state the nature of that opposition, and I 
ask your indulgence while I do so. What is fairly im- 
plied by the term Judge Douglas has used, *' resistance 
to the decision " ? I do not resist it. If I wanted to 
take Dred Scott from his master, I would be interfering 
with property, and that terrible diCQculty that Judge 



Qg SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Douglas speaks of, of interfering with property, would 
arise. But I am doing no such thing as that ; all that 
I am doing is refusing to obey it as a political rule. 
If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a 
question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new 
Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would 
vote that it should. 

That is what I would do. Judge Douglas said last 
night that before the decision he might advance his 
opinion, and it might be contrary to the decision when 
it was made; but after it was made he would abide by 
it until it was reversed. Just so! We let this prop- 
erty abide by the decision, but we will try to reverse 
that decision. We will try to put it where Judge 
Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it 
until it is reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decis- 
ion, since it is made ; and we mean to reverse it, and we 
mean to do it peaceably. 

What are the uses of decisions of courts? They have 
two uses. As rules of property they have two uses. 
First — they decide upon the question before the court. 
They decide in this case that Dred Scott is a slave. 
Nobody resists that. Not only that, but they say to 
everybody else that persons standing just as Dred 
Scott stands are as he is. That is, they say that when a 
question comes up upon another person, it will be so 
decided again, unless the court decides in another way, 
unless the court overrules its decision. Well, we mean 
to do what we can to have the court decide the other 
way. That is one thing we mean to try to do. 

The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around 
this decision is a degree of sacredness that has never 
been before thrown around any other decision. I have 
never heard of such a thing. Why, decisions apparently 
contrary to that decision, or that good lawyers thought 
were contrary to that decision, have been made by that 
very court before. It is the first of its kind ; it is an 
astonisher in legal historv. It is a new wonder of the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^9 

world. It is based upon falsehood in the main as 
to the facts, — allegations of facts upon which it stands 
are not facts at all in many instances, — and no decis- 
ion made on any question — the first instance of a decis- 
ion made under so many unfavorable circumstances — 
thus placed, has ever been held by the profession as law, 
and it has always needed confirmation before the law- 
yers regarded it as settled law. But Judge Douglas 
will have it that all hands must take this extraordinary 
decision, made under these extraordinary circum- 
stances, and give their vote in Congress in accordance 
with it, 3'ield to it and obey it in every ])ossible sense. 
Circumstances alter cases. Do not gentlemen here re- 
member the case of that same Supreme Court, some 
twentj'-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a national 
bank was constitutional? I ask if somebody does not 
remember that a national bank was declared to be con- 
stitutional? Such is the truth, whether it be remem- 
bered or not. The bank charter ran out, and a rccharter 
was granted by Congress. That recharter was laid be- 
fore General Jackson. It was urged upon him, when 
he denied the constitutionality of the bank, that the 
Supreme Court had decided that it was constitutional; 
and General Jackson then said that the Supreme Court 
had no right to lay down a rule to govern a coordinate 
branch of the government, the members of which had 
sworn to support the Constitution — that each member 
had sworn to support that Constitution as he under- 
stood it. I will venture here to say that I have heard 
Judge Douglas say that he approved of General Jack- 
son for that act. What has now become of all his 
tirade against " resistance to the Supreme Court " ? 

My fellow-citizens, getting back a little, for I pass 
from these points, when Judge Douglas makes his 
threat of annihilation upon the '' alliance,'- he is cau- 
tious to say that that warfare of his is to fall upon the 
leaders of the Republican party. Almost every word 
he utters, and every distinction he makes, has its sig- 



YO SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLJf. 

nificance. He means for the Republicans who do not 
count themselves as leaders to be his friends; he makes 
no fuss over them ; it is the leaders that he is making 
war upon. He Vvants it understood that the mass of 
the Republican party are really his friends. It is only 
the leaders that are doing something, that are in- 
tolerant, and require extermination at his hands. As 
this is clearly and unquestionably the light in which 
he presents that matter, I want to ask your attention, 
addressing myself to Republicans here, that I may ask 
you some questions as to where you, as the Republican 
party, would be placed if you sustained Judge Douglas 
in his present position by a reelection? I do not claim, 
gentlemen, to be unselfish ; I do not pretend that I 
would not like to go to the United States Senate; I 
make no such hypocritical pretense, but I do say to you 
that in this mighty issue, it is nothing to you — nothing 
to the mass of the people of the nation — whether or not 
Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be heard of after 
this night; it may be a trifle to either of us, but in 
connection with this mighty question, upon which hang 
the destinies of the nation, perhaps, it is absolutely 
nothing. But where will you be placed if you reindorse 
Judge Douglas? Don't you know how apt he is — how 
exceedingly anxious he is at all times to seize upon 
anything and everything to persuade you that sojoe- 
thing he has done you did yourselves? Why, he tried 
to persuade you last night that our Illinois legislature 
instructed him to introduce the Nebraska bill. There 
was nobody in that legislature ever thought of such a 
thing; and when he first introduced the bill, he never 
thought of it; but still he fights furiously for the propo- 
sition, and that he did it because there was a standing 
instruction to our senators to be always introducing 
Nebraska bills. He tells you he is for the Cincinnati 
platform ; he tells you he is for the Dred Scott decision. 
He tells you, not in his speech last night, but sub- 
stantially in a former speech, that he cares not if 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 7;^ 

slavery is voted up or down ; he tells you the struggle on 
Lecompton is past — it may come up again or not, and 
if it does he stands where he stood when in spite of 
him and his opposition you built up the Republican 
party. If you indorse him, you tell him you do not 
care whether slaver}' be voted up or down, and he will 
close, or try to close, your mouths with his declaration, 
repeated by the day, the week, the month, and the year. 
I think, in the position in which Judge Douglas stood 
in opposing the Lecompton constitution, he was right; 
he does not know that it will return, but if it does w^e 
may know where to find him, and if it does not w^e may 
know where to look for him, and that is on the Cin- 
cinnati platform. Now I could ask the Republican 
party, after all the hard names Judge Douglas has 
called them by, all his repeated charges of their inclina- 
tion to marry with and hug negroes, all his declarations 
of Black Republicanism, — by the way, we are improv- 
ing, the black has got rubbed off, — but with all that, if 
he be indorsed by Republican votes, where do you 
stand? Plainly, you stand ready saddled, bridled, and 
harnessed, and waiting to be driven over to the slavery 
extension camp of the nation, — just ready to be driven 
over, tied together in a lot, — to be driven over, every 
man with a rope around his neck, that halter being held 
by Judge Douglas. That is the question. If Republi- 
can men have been in earnest in what they have done, I 
think they had better not do it; but I think the Repub- 
lican party is made up of those who, as far as they can 
peaceabl}', will oppose the extension of slavery, and 
who will hope for its ultimate extinction. If they 
believe it is wrong in grasping up the new lands of the 
continent, and keeping them from the settlement of free 
white laborers, who want the land to bring up their 
families upon; if they are in earnest, although they 
may make a mistake, they will grow restless, and the 
time v^'ill come when they will come back again and 
reorganize, if not by the same name, at least upon the 



7^ SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLK". 

same principles as their party now has. It is better, 
then, to save the work while it is begun. You have done 
the labor; maintain it, keep it. If men choose to serve 
you, go with them ; but as you have made up your 
organization upon principle, stand by it; for, as surely 
as God reigns over you, and has inspired your mind, 
and given you a sense of propriety, and continues to 
give you hope, so surely will you still cling to these 
ideas, and you will at last come back again after your 
wanderings, merely to do your work over again. 

We were often — more than once at least — in the 
course of Judge Douglas's speech last night reminded 
that this government was made for white men — that he 
believed it was made for white men. Well, that is 
putting it into a shape in which no one wants to deny 
it; but the judge then goes into his passion for draw- 
ing inferences that are not warranted. I protest, now 
and forever, against that counterfeit logic which pre- 
sumes that because I do not want a negro woman for a 
slave, I do necessarily want her for a wife. My under- 
standing is that I need not have her for either; but, as 
God made us separate, we can leave one another alone, 
and do one another much good thereby. There are 
white men enough to marry all the white women, and 
enough black men to marry all the black women, and 
in God's name let them be so married. The judge re- 
gales us with the terrible enormities that take place by 
the mixture of races; that the inferior race bears the 
superior down. Why, judge, if we do not let them get 
together in the Territories, they won't mix there. [A 
voice : " Three cheers for Lincoln ! " The cheers were 
given with a hearty good will.] I shall say at least 
that that is a self-evident truth. 

Now, it happens that we meet together once every 
year, somewhere about the 4th of July, for some reason 
or other. These 4th of July gatherings I suppose have 
their uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I 
suppose to be some of them. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINC0L?5". 73 

We are now a mighty nation : we are thirty, or about 
thirty, millions of people, and we own and inhabit 
about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole 
earth. We run our memory back over the pages of 
history for about eighty-two years, and we discover 
that we were then a very small people, in point of num- 
bers vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly 
less extent of country, with vastly less of everything we 
deem desirable among men. We look upon the change 
as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, 
and we fix upon something that happened away back as 
in some way or other being connected with this rise of 
prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day 
whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they 
were iron men ; they fought for the principle that they 
were contending for; and we understood that by what 
they then did it has followed that the degree of pros- 
perity which we now enjoy has come to us. We hold 
this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the 
good done in this process of time, of how it was done 
and who did it, and how we are historically connected 
with it ; and we go from these meetings in better humor 
with ourselves — we feel more attached the one to the 
other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. 
In every way we are better men, in the age, and race, 
and country in which we live, for these celebrations. 
But after we have done all this, we have not yet reached 
the whole. There is something else connected with it. 
We have, besides these men — descended by blood from 
our ancestors — among us, perhaps half our people who 
are not descendants at all of these men ; they are men 
who have come from Europe, — German, Irish, French, 
and Scandinavian, — men that have come from Europe 
themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and 
settled here, finding themselves our equal in all things. 
If they look back through this history to trace their 
connection with those days by blood, they find they 
have none; they cannot carry themselves back into that 



fl4: SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are 
part of us; but when they look through that old Dec- 
laration of Independence, they find that those old men 
say that " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 
all men are created equal," and then they feel that that 
moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their re- 
lation to those men, that it is the father of all moral 
principle in them, and that they have a right to claim 
it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of 
the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration, and 
so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declara- 
tion that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-lov- 
ing men together, that will link those patriotic hearts 
as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of 
men throughout the world. 

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with 
this idea of " don't care if slavery is voted up or voted 
down," for sustaining the Dred Scott decision, for 
holding that the Declaration of Independence did not 
mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving 
his exposition of what the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence means, and we have him saying that the people 
of America are equal to the people of England. Accord- 
ing to his construction, you Germans are not connected 
with it. Now I ask you, in all soberness, if all these 
things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and in- 
dorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, 
do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the 
country, and to transform this government into a 
government of some other form? Those arguments 
that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated 
with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoy- 
ing; that as much is to be done for them as their con- 
dition will allow — what are these arguments? They 
are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving 
the people in all ages of the world. You will find that 
all the arguments in favor of kingcraft were of this 
class; they always bestrode the necks of the people— 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 75 

not that thej wanted to do it, but because the people 
were better off for being ridden. That is their argu- 
ment, and this argument of the judge is the same old 
serpent that says, You work and I eat, you toil and I 
will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you 
will — whether it come from the mouth of a king, an 
excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from 
the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslav- 
ing the men of another race, it is all the same old 
serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation 
that is made for the purpose of convincing the public 
mind that we should not care about this should be 
granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like 
to know — taking this old Declaration of Independence, 
which declares that all men are equal upon principle, 
and making exceptions to it,— where will it stop? If 
one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another 
say it does not mean some other man ? If that Declara- 
tion is not the truth, let us get the statute-book in 
which we find it, and tear it out! Who is so bold as to 
do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out [cries of 
*' No, no '■]. Let us stick to it, then; let us stand firmly 
by it, then. 

It may be argued that there are certain conditions 
that make necessities and impose them upon us, and to 
the extent that a necessity is imposed upon a man, he 
must submit to it. I think that w^as the condition in 
which we found ourselves when we established this 
government. We had slaves among us ; we could not 
get our Constitution unless we permitted them to re- 
main in slavery; we could not secure the good we did 
secure if we grasped for more ; but having by necessity 
submitted to that much, it does not destroy the princi- 
ple that is the charter of our liberties. Let that charter 
stand as our standard. 

My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to 
quote Scripture. I will try it again, however. It 
is said in one of the admonitions of our Lord, '^ Be ye 



Y6 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

[therefore] perfect even as your Father which is in 
heaven is perfect." The Saviour, I suppose, did not ex- 
pect that any human creature could be perfect as the 
Father in heaven ; but he said, " As your Father in 
heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." He set that up as 
a standard, and he who did most toward reaching that 
standard attained the highest degree of moral perfec- 
tion. So I say in relation to the principle that all men 
are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. 
If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do 
nothing that will impose slavery upon any other crea- 
ture. Let us then turn this government back into the 
channel in which the framers of the Constitution 
originally placed it. Let us stand firmly by each other. 
If we do not do so, we are tending in the contrary 
direction that our friend Judge Douglas proposes — not 
intentionally — working in the traces that tend to make 
this one universal slave nation. He is one that runs 
in that direction, and as such I resist him. 

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I 
desired to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all 
this quibbling about this man and the other man, this 
race and that race and the other race being inferior, 
and therefore they must be placed in an inferior posi- 
tion. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one 
people throughout this land, until we shall once more 
stand up declaring that all men are created equal. I 
leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in 
your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt 
that all men are created free and equal. 




2 
'q^ 

'^ 



CO 



o 






SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 77 



SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, ILL., JULY 17, 1858. 

[In this address, Mr. Lincoln discusses what is " popular 
sovereignty"; Judge Douglas's claim for credit in defeating the 
Lecompton constitution ; the Dred Scott decision ; and concludes 
by presenting afresh his views on the subject of negro slavery, 
based upon the Declaration of Independence — that all men are 
created equal, in so far, at least, as they have a right to " life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"]. 

Fellow-citizens: Another election, which is deemed 
an important one, is approaching; and, as I suppose, 
the Republican party will without much difficulty elect 
their State ticket. But in regard to the legislature, we, 
the Republicans, labor under some disadvantages. . . . 
There is [one] disadvantage under which we labor, and 
to which I will ask your attention. It arises out of the 
relative positions of the two persons who stand before 
the State as candidates for the Senate. Senator Doug- 
las is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politi- 
cians of his party, or who have been of his party for 
years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, 
at no distant day, to be the President of the United 
States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful 
face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet 
appointments, cliargeships and foreign missions, burst- 
ing and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready 
to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they 
have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, 
they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken 
place in the party, bring themselves to give up the 
charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush 
about him, sustain him, and give him marches, trium- 
phal entries, and receptions beyond what even in the 
days of his highest prosperity they could have brought 
about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever 



Y8 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank 
face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were 
sprouting out. These are disadvantages all, taken to- 
gether, that the Kepublicans labor under. We have to 
fight this battle upon principle, and upon principle 
alone. I am, in a certain sense, made the standard- 
bearer in behalf of the Republicans. I was made so 
merely because there had to be some one so placed, 
I being in no wise preferable to any other one of the 
twenty-five, perhaps a hundred, we have in the Repub- 
lican ranks. Then I say I wish it to be distinctly un- 
derstood and borne in mind, that we have to fight this 
battle without many — perhaps without any — of the 
external aids which are brought to bear against us. So 
I hope those with whom I am surrounded have prin- 
ciple enough to nerve themselves for the task, and 
leave nothing undone that can be fairly done to bring 
about the right result. 

After Senator Douglas left Washington, as his move- 
ments were made known by the public prints, he tarried 
a considerable time in the city of New York ; and it was 
heralded that, like another Napoleon, he was lying by 
and framing the plan of his campaign. It was tele- 
graphed to Washington City, and published in the 
" Union," that he was framing his plan for the purpose 
of going to Illinois to pounce upon and annihilate the 
treasonable and disunion speech which Lincoln had 
made here on the 16th of June. Now, I do suppose that 
the judge really spent some time in New York matur- 
ing the plan of the campaign, as his friends heralded 
for him. I have been able, by noting his movements 
since his arrival in Illinois, to discover evidences con- 
firmatory of that allegation. I think I have been able 
to see what are the material points of that plan. I 
will, for a little while, ask your attention to some of 
them. What I shall point out, though not showing the 
whole plan, are nevertheless the main points, as I sup- 
pose. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAIIxUI LINCOLN". 79 

They are not very numerous. The first is popular 
sovereignty. The second and third are attacks upon 
my speech made on the IGth of June. Out of these three 
points — drawing within the range of popular sover- 
eignty the question of the Lecompton constitution — 
he makes his principal assault. Upon these his succes- 
sive speeches are substantially one and the same. On 
this matter of popular sovereignty I Avish to be a little 
careful. Auxiliary to these main points, to be sure, are 
their thunderings of cannon, their marching and music, 
their fizzle-gigs and fireworks ; but I will not waste time 
with them. They are but the little trappings of the 
campaign. 

Coming to the substance, the first point, " popular 
sovereignty." It is to be labeled upon the cars in which 
he travels ; put upon the hacks he rides in ; to be 
flaunted upon the arches he passes under, and the ban- 
ners which wave over him. It is to be dished up in as 
many varieties as a French cook can produce soups 
from potatoes. Now, as this is so great a staple of the 
plan of the campaign, it is worth while to examine it 
carefully ; and if we examine only a verj little, and 
do not allow ourselves to be misled, we shall be able to 
see that the whole thing is the most arrant quixotism 
that was ever enacted before a community. What is 
the matter of popular sovereignty? The first thing, in 
order to understand it, is to get a good definition of 
what it is, and after that to see how it is applied. 

I suppose almost every one knows that, in this con- 
troversy, whatever has been said has had reference to 
the question of negro slavery. We have not been in a 
controversy about the right of the people to govern 
themselves in the ordinary matters of domestic con- 
cern in the States and Territories. Mr. Buchanan, in 
one of his late messages (I think when he sent up the 
Lecompton constitution), urged that the main point of 
public attention was not in regard to the great variety 
of small domestic matters, but was directed to the ques- 



80 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tion of negro slavery; and he asserts that if the people 
had had a fair chance to vote on that question, there 
was no reasonable ground of objection in regard to 
minor questions. Now, while I think that the people 
had not had given, or offered them, a fair chance upon 
that slavery question, still, if there had been a fair sub- 
mission to a vote upon that main question, the Presi- 
dent's proposition would have been true to the utter- 
most. Hence, when hereafter I speak of popular sover- 
eignty, I wish to be understood as applying what I say 
to the question of slavery only, not to other minor 
domestic matters of a Territory or a State. 

Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of 
the past years of his life have been devoted to the ques- 
tion of " popular sovereignty," and that all the remain- 
der of his life shall be devoted to it, does he mean to 
say that he has been devoting his life to securing to 
the people of the Territories the right to exclude 
slavery from the Territories? If he means so to say, he 
means to deceive; because he and every one knows that 
the decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves 
and makes especial ground of attack upon me for dis- 
approving, forbids the people of a Territory to exclude 
slavery. This covers. the whole ground, from the settle- 
ment of a Territory till it reaches the degree of ma- 
turity entitling it to form a State constitution. So far 
as all that ground is concerned, the judge is not sus- 
taining popular sovereignty, but absolutely opposing 
it. He sustains the decision which declares that the 
popular will of the Territories has no constitutional 
power to exclude slavery during their territorial ex- 
istence. This being so, the period of time from the first 
settlement of a Territory till it reaches the point of 
forming a State constitution is not the thing that the 
judge has fought for, or is fighting for ; but on the con- 
trary, he has fought for, and is fighting for the thing 
that annihilates and crushes out that same popular 
sovereignty. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. gl 

Well, so much being disposed of, what is left? Why, 
he is contending for the right of the people, when they 
come to make a State constitution, to make it for them- 
selves, and precisely as best suits themselves. I say, 
again, that is quixotic. I defy contradiction when I de- 
clare that the judge can find no one to oppose him on 
that proposition, I repeat, there is nobody opposing 
that proposition on principle. Let me not be misunder- 
stood. I know that, with reference to the Lecompton 
constitution, I may be misunderstood ; but when you 
understand me correctly, my proposition will be true 
and accurate. Nobody is opposing, or has opposed, the 
right of the people, when they form a constitution, to 
form it for themselves. Mr. Buchanan and his friends 
have not done it; they, too, as well as the Republicans 
and the Anti-Lecompton Democrats, have not done it; 
but, on the contrary, they together have insisted on 
the right of the people to form a constitution for them- 
selves. The difference between the Buchanan men on 
the one hand, and the Douglas men and the Republicans 
on the other, has not been on a question of principle, 
but on a question of fact. 

The dispute was upon the question of fact, whether 
the Lecompton constitution had been fairly formed by 
the people or not. Mr. Buchanan and his friends have 
not contended for the contrary principle any more than 
the Douglas men or the Republicans. They have in- 
sisted that whatever of small irregularities existed in 
getting up the Lecompton constitution were such as 
happen in the settlement of all new Territories. The 
question was, was it a fair emanation of the people? 
It was a question of fact and not of principle. As to 
the principle, all were agreed. Judge Douglas voted 
with the Republicans upon that matter of fact. 

He and they, by their voices and votes, denied that it 
was a fair emanation of the people. The adminis- 
tration aflSrmcd that it was. With respect to the evi- 
dence bearing upon that question of fact, I readily 
6 



82 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

agree that Judge Douglas and the Republicans had the 
right on their side, and that the administration was 
wrong. But I state again that, as a matter of principle, 
there is no dispute upon the right of a people in a Ter- 
ritory merging into a State to form a constitution for 
themselves without outside interference from an}- quar- 
ter. This being so, what is Judge Douglas going to 
spend his life for? Does he expect to stand up in 
majestic dignity, and go through his apotheosis and be- 
come a god, in the maintaining of a principle Vvhich 
neither man nor mouse in all God's creation is op- 
posing? Now something in regard to the Lecompton 
constitution more specially ; for I pass from this other 
question of popular sovereignty as the most arrant 
humbug that has ever been attempted on an intelli- 
gent community. 

As to the Lecompton constitution, I have already said 
that on the question of facts as to whether it was a fair 
emanation of the people or not, Judge Douglas with 
the Republicans and some " Americans " had greatly 
the argument against the administration; and while I 
repeat this, I wish to know what there is in the opposi- 
tion of Judge Douglas to the Lecompton constitution 
that entitles him to be considered the only opponent 
to it — as being p«r excellence the very quintessence of 
that opposition. I agree to the rightfulness of his 
opposition. He in the Senate, and his class of men 
there, formed the number three and no more. In the 
House of Representatives his class of men — the Anti- 
Lecompton Democrats — formed a number of about 
twenty. It took one hundred and twenty to defeat the 
measure, against one hundred and twelve. Of the votes 
of that one hundred and twenty. Judge Douglas's 
friends furnished twenty, to add to which there were 
six Americans and ninety-four Republicans. I do not 
say that I am precisely accurate in their numbers, but 
I am sufficiently so for any use I am making of it. 

Why is it that twenty shall be entitled to all the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. §3 

credit of doing that work, and the hundred none of it? 
Why, if, as Judge Douglas says, the honor is to be 
divided and due credit is to be given to other parties, 
why is just so much given as is consonant with the 
wishes, the interests, and advancement of the twenty? 
My understanding is, when a common job is done, or a 
common enterprise prosecuted, if I put in five dollars 
to your one, I have a right to take out five dollars to 
your one. But he does not so understand it. He de- 
clares tlie dividend of credit for defeating Lecompton 
upon a basis which seems unprecedented and incom- 
prehensible. 

Let us see. Lecompton in the raw was defeated. It 
afterward took a sort of cooked-up shape, and was 
passed in the English bill. It is said by the judge that 
the defeat was a good and proper thing. If it was a 
good thing, why is he entitled to more credit than 
others for the performance of that good act, unless 
there was something in the antecedents of the Repub- 
licans that might induce every one to expect them to 
join in that good work, and at the same time something 
leading them to doubt that he would? Does he place 
his superior claim to credit on the ground that he 
performed a good act which was never expected of him? 
He says I have a proneness for quoting scripture. If 
I should do so now, it occurs that perhaps he i)laces 
himself somewhat upon the ground of the parable of 
the lost sheep which went astray upon the mountains, 
and when the owner of the hundred sheep found the 
one that was lost, and threw it upon his shoulders, 
and came home rejoicing, it was said that there was 
m-ore rejoicing over the one sheep that was lost and had 
been found, than over the ninety and nine in the fold. 
The application is made by the Saviour in this parable, 
thus: "Verily, I say unto you, there is more rejoic- 
ing in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over 
ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance." 

And now, if the judge claims the benefit of this 



94 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

parable, let him repent. Let him not come up here and 
say: *' I am the only just person; and you are the 
ninety-nine sinners!" Repentance before forgiveness 
is a provision of the Christian system, and on that con- 
dition alone will the Republicans grant him forgive- 
ness. 

How will he prove that we have ever occupied a 
different position in regard to the Lecompton constitu- 
tion or any principle in it? He says he did not make 
his opposition on the ground as to whether it was a free 
or slave constitution, and he would have you under- 
stand that the Republicans made their opposition be- 
cause it ultimately became a slave constitution. To 
make proof in favor of himself on this point, he reminds 
us that he opposed Lecompton before the vote was taken 
declaring whether the State was to be free or slave. 
But he forgets to say that our Republican senator, 
Trumbull, made a sjieech against Lecompton even be- 
fore he did. 

Why did he oppose it? Partly, as he declares, be- 
cause the members of the convention who framed it 
were not fairly elected by the people; that the people 
were not allowed to vote unless they had been regis- 
tered; and that the people of whole counties, in some 
instances, were not registered. For these reasons he 
declares the constitution was not an emanation, in 
any true sense, from the people. He also has an ad- 
ditional objection as to the mode of submitting the 
constitution back to the people. But bearing on the 
question of whether the delegates were fairly elected, 
a speech of his, made something more than twelve 
months ago from this stand, becomes important. It 
was made a little while before the election of the dele- 
gates who made Lecompton. In that speech he de- 
clared there was every reason to hope and believe the 
election would be fair, and if any one failed to vote it 
would be his own culpable fault. 

I, a few days after, made a sort of answer to that 
speech. In that answer I made substantially the very 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN^. §5 

argument with which he combated his Lecompton ad- 
versaries in the Senate last winter. I pointed to the 
facts that tlie people could not vote without being 
registered, and that the time for registering had gone 
by. I commented on it as wonderful that Judge Doug- 
las could be ignorant of these facts, which every one 
else in the nation so well knew. 

I now pass from popular sovereignty and Lecomp- 
ton. I may have occasion to refer to one or both. 

When he was preparing his plan of campaign, Ka- 
poleon-like, in New York, as appears by two speeches 
I have heard him deliver since his arrival in Illinois, 
he gave special attention to a speech of mine delivered 
here on the 16th of June last. He says that he care- 
fully read that speech. He told us that at Chicago a 
week ago last night, and he repeated it at Blooming- 
ton last night. Doubtless he repeated it again to- 
day, though I did not hear him. In the two first places 
— Chicago and Bloomington — I heard him; to-day I 
did not. He said he had carefully examined that 
speech; when, he did not say; but there is no reasonable 
doubt it was when he was in New York preparing his 
plan of campaign. I am glad he did read it carefully. 
He says it was evidently prepared with great care. I 
freely admit it was prepared with care. I claim not to 
be more free from errors than others — perhaps scarcely 
so much; but I was very careful not to put anything 
in that speech as a matter of fact, or make any in- 
ferences which did not appear to me to be true and 
fully warrantable. If I had made any mistake I was 
willing to be corrected ; if I had drawn any inference in 
regard to Judge Douglas, or any one else, which was 
not warranted, I was fully prepared to modify it as 
soon as discovered. I planted myself upon the truth 
and the truth only, so far as I knew it, or could be 
brought to know it. 

Having made that speech with the most kindly feel- 
ings toward Judge Douglas, as manifested therein, I 



gg SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

was gratified when I found that he had carefully ex- 
amined it, and had detected no error of fact, nor any 
inference against him, nor any misrepresentations, of 
which he thought fit to complain. In neither of the 
two speeches I have mentioned, did he make any such 
complaint. I will thank any one who will inform me 
that he, in his speech to-day, pointed out anything I 
had stated, respecting him, as being erroneous. I 
presume there is no such thing. I have reason to be 
gratified that the care and caution used in that speech 
left it so that he, most of all others interested in dis- 
covering error, has not been able to point out one 
thing against him which he could say was wrong. He 
seizes upon the doctrines he supposes to be included in 
that speech, and declares that upon them will turn the 
issues of the campaign. He then quotes, or attempts to 
quote, from my speech, I will not say that he wilfully 
misquotes, but he does fail to quote accurately. His 
attempt at quoting is from a passage which I believe 
I can quote accurately from memory. I shall make the 
quotation now, with some comments upon it, as I have 
already said, in order that the judge shall be left en- 
tirely without excuse for misrepresenting me. I do 
so now, as I hope, for the last time. I do this in great 
caution, in order that if he repeats his misrepresenta- 
tion, it shall be plain tg all that he does so wilfully. 
If, after all, he still persists, I shall be compelled to 
reconstruct the course I have marked out for myself, 
and draw upon such humble resources as I have for a 
new course, better suited to the real exigencies of the 
case. I set out, in this campaign, with the intention of 
conducting it strictly as a gentleman, in substance at 
least, if not in the outside polish. The latter I shall 
never be, but that which constitutes the inside of a 
gentleman I hope I understand, and am not less in- 
clined to practise than others. It was my purpose and 
expectation that this canvass would be conducted upon 
principle^ and with fairness on both sides, and it shall 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLN. 87 

not be my fault if this purpose and expectation shall 
be given up. 

He charges, in substance, that I invite a war of sec- 
tions; that I propose all local institutions of the dif- 
ferent States shall become consolidated and uniform. 
What is there in the language of that speech which ex- 
presses such purpose or bears such construction? I 
have again and again said that I would not enter into 
any of the States to disturb the institution of slavery. 
Judge Douglas said, at Bloomington, that 1 used 
language most able and ingenious for concealing what t 
really meant; and that while I had protested against 
entering into the slave States, I nevertheless did mean 
to go on the banks of the Ohio and throw missiles into 
Kentucky, to disturb them in their domestic institu- 
tions. 

I said in that speech, and I meant no more, that the 
institution of slavery ought to be placed in the very 
attitude where the framers of this government placed 
it and left it. I do not understand that the framers 
of our Constitution left the people in the free States in 
the attitude of firing bombs or shells into the slavtj 
States. I was not using that passage for the purpose 
for which he infers I did use it. I said : 

We are now far advanced into the fifth year since a policy waa 
created for the avowed object and with the confident promise of 
putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that 
policy that agitation has not only ceased, but has constantly 
augmented. In my opinion it will not cease till a crisis shall 
have been reached and passed. " A house divided against itself 
cannot stand." I believe that this government cannot endure 
permanently half slave and half free. It will become all one 
thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will ar- 
rest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind 
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall be- 
come alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as 
well as South. 

Now you all see, from that quotation, I did not ex- 
press my wish on anything. In that passage I indi- 



88 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

cated no wish or purpose of my own; I simply ex- 
pressed my expectation. Cannot the judge perceive 
a distinction between a purpose and an expectation? 
I have often expressed an expectation to die, but I have 
never expressed a wish to die. I said at Chicago, and 
now repeat, that I am quite aware this government 
has endured half slave and half free for eighty-two 
years. I understand that little bit of history. I ex- 
pressed the opinion I did, because I perceived — or 
thought I perceived — a new set of causes introduced. 
I did say at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish 
to see the spread of slavery arrested, and to see it 
placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief 
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. I said 
that because I supposed, when the public mind shall 
rest in that belief, we shall have peace on the slavery 
question. I have believed — and now believe — the 
public mind did rest in that belief up to the introduc- 
tion of the Nebraska bill. 

Although I have ever been opposed to slavery, so 
far I rested in the hope and belief that it was in the 
course of ultimate extinction. For that reason, it had 
been a minor question with me. I might have been 
mistaken ; but I had believed, and now believe, that the 
whole public mind, that is, the mind of the great ma- 
jority, had rested in that belief up to the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. But upon that event, I became 
convinced that either I had been resting in a delusion, 
or the institution was being placed on a new basis — 
a basis for making it perpetual, national, and uni- 
versal. Subsequent events have greatly confirmed me 
in that belief. I believe that bill to be the beginning 
of a conspiracy for that purpose. So believing, I have 
since then considered that question a paramount one. 
So believing, I think the public mind will never rest 
till the power of Congress to restrict the spread of it 
shall again be acknowledged and exercised on the one 
hand, or, on the other, all resistance be entirely 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. §9 

crushed out. I have expressed that opinion, and I 
entertain it to-night. It is denied that there is any 
tendency to the nationalization of slavery in these 
States. 

Now, as to the Dred Scott decision ; for upon that he 
makes his last point at me. He boldly takes ground in 
favor of that decision. This is one half the on- 
slaught, and one third of the entire plan of the cam- 
paign. I am opposed to that decision in a certain 
sense, but not in the sense which he puts on it. I say 
that in so far as it decided in favor of Dred Scott's 
master, and against Dred Scott and his family, I do 
not propose to disturb or resist the decision. 

I never have proposed to do any such thing. I think 
that in respect for judicial authority, my humble his- 
tory would not suffer in comparison with that of 
Judge Douglas. He would have the citizen conform hiss 
vote to that decision ; the member of Congress, his; the 
President, his use of the veto power. He would make 
it a rule of political action for the people and all the 
departments of the government. I would not. By 
resisting it as a political rule, I disturb no right of 
property, create no disorder, excite no mobs. 

When he spoke at Chicago, on Friday evening of 
last week, he made this same point upon me. On 
Saturday evening I replied, and reminded him of a 
Supreme Court decision which he opposed for at least 
several years. Last night, at Bloomington, he took 
some notice of that reply, but entirely forgot to re- 
member that part of it. 

He renews his onslaught upon me, forgetting to 
remember that I have turned the tables against himself 
on that very point. I renew the effort to draw his at- 
tention to it. I wish to stand erect before the country, 
as well as Judge Douglas, on this question of judicial 
authority, and therefore I add something to the author- 
ity in favor of my own position. I wish to show that I 
am sustained by authority, in addition to that hereto- 



90 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOL^^. 

fore presented. I do not espect to convince the judge. 
It is part of the plan of his campaign, and he will cling 
to it with a desperate grip. Even turn it upon him — 
the sharp point against him, and gaff him through — he 
will still cling to it till he can invent some new dodge 
to take the place of it. 

There is one other point. Judge Douglas, has a very 
affectionate leaning toward the Americans and Old 
Whigs. Last evening, in a sort of weeping tone, he 
described to us a death-bed scene. He had been called 
to the side of Mr. Clay, in his last moments, in order 
that the genius of " popular sovereignty " might duly 
descend from the dying man and settle upon him, the 
living and most worthy successor. He could do no less 
than promise that he would devote the remainder of 
his life to ''popular sovereignty"; and then the great 
statesman departs in peace. By this part of the " plan 
of the campaign,'' the judge has evidently promised 
himself that tears shall be drawn down the cheeks of all 
Old Whigs, as large as half-grown apples. 

Mr. Webster, too, was mentioned ; but it did not 
quite come to a death-bed scene, as to him. It would 
be amusing, if it were not disgusting, to see how quick 
these compromise-breakers administer on the political 
effects of their dead adversaries, trumping up claims 
never before heard of, and dividing the assets among 
themselves. If I should be found dead to-morrow morn- 
ing, nothing but my insignificance could prevent a 
speech being made on my authority, before the end of 
next week. It so happens that in that " popular sover- 
eignty " with which Mr. Clay was identified, the Mis- 
souri Compromise was expressly reserved ; and it was a 
little singular if Mr. Clay cast his mantle upon Judge 
Douglas on purpose to have that compromise repealed. 

Again, the judge did not keep faith with Mr Clay 
when he first brought in his Nebraska bill. He left 
the Missouri Compromise unrepealed, and in his report 
accompanying the bill, he told the world he did it on 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. <^l 

purpose. The manes of Mr. Clay must have been in 
great agony, till thirty days later, when " popular 
sovereignty " stood forth in all its glory. 

One more thing. Last night Judge Douglas tor- 
mented himself with horrors about my disposition to 
make negroes perfectly equal with white men in social 
and political relations. He did not stop to show that 
I have said any such thing, or that it legitimately fol- 
lows from anything I have said, but he rushes on with 
his assertions. I adhere to the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not will- 
ing to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. 
Let them make it read that all men are created equal, 
except negroes. Let us have it decided whether the 
Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 
1858, shall be thus amended. In his construction of 
the Declaration last year, he said it only meant that 
Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in 
England. Then, when I pointed out to him that by 
that rule he excludes the Germans, the Irish, the Por- 
tuguese, and all the other people who have come 
amongst us since the Revolution, he reconstructs his 
construction. In his last speech he tells us it meant 
Europeans. 

I press him a little farther, and ask if it meant 
to include the Russians in Asia? or does he mean to 
exclude that vast population from the principles of our 
Declaration of Independence? I expect ere long he 
will introduce another amendment to his definition. 
He is not at all particular. He is satisfied with any- 
thing which does not endanger the nationalizing of 
negro slavery. It may draw white men down, but it 
must not lift negroes up. Who shall say, " I am the 
superior, and you are the inferior? '' 

My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery 
may be misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood. 
I have said that I do not understand the Declaration 
to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. 



92 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

They are not our equal in color ; but I suppose that it 
does mean to declare that all men are equal in some 
respects; they are equal in their right to " life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is 
not our equal in color — perhaps not in many other re- 
spects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the 
bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal 
of every other man, white or black. In pointing out 
that more has been given you, you cannot be justified 
in taking away the little which has been given him. All 
I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let 
him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let 
him enjoy. 

When our government was established, we had the 
institution of slavery among us. We were in a certain 
sense compelled to tolerate its existence. It was a sort 
of necessity. We had gone through our struggle, and 
secured our own independence. The framers of the 
Constitution found the institution of slavery amongst 
their other institutions at the time. They found that 
by an effort to eradicate it, they might lose much of 
what they had already gained. They were obliged to 
bow to the necessity. They gave power to Congress 
to abolish the slave-trade at the end of twenty years. 
They also prohibited slavery in the Territories where it 
did not exist. They did what they could and yielded to 
necessity for the rest. I also yield to all which follows 
from that necessity. What I would most desire would 
be the separation of the white and black races. 

One more point on this Springfield speech which 
Judge Douglas says he has read so carefully. I ex- 
pressed my belief in the existence of a conspiracy to 
perpetuate and nationalize slavery. I did not profess 
to know it, nor do I now. I showed the part Judge 
Douglas had played in the string of facts, constituting 
to my mind the proof of that conspiracy. I showed the 
parts played by others. 

I charge that the people had been deceived into carry- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 93 

ing the last presidential election, by the impression 
that the people of the Territories might exclude slavery 
if they chose, when it was known in advance by the con- 
spirators, that the court was to decide that neither Con- 
gress nor the people could so exclude slavery. These 
charges are more distinctly made than anything else 
in the speech. 

Judge Douglas has carefully read and re-read that 
speech. He has not, so far as I know, contradicted 
those charges. In the two speeches which I heard he 
certainly did not. On his own tacit admission I renew 
that charge. I charge him with having been a party to 
that conspiracy, and to that deception, for the sole 
purpose of nationalizing slavery. 



94- SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



FIRST OF THE JOINT LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DE- 
BATES AT OTTAWA, ILL., AUG. 21, 1858.— 
LINCOLN'S REPLY. 

[In this, the earliest, of the speeches of Lincoln in his famous 
tilts with Judge Douglas, Lincoln replies to his attempt to 
fasten upon him the odium of holding the perfect social and 
political equality of the black man and the white. This Lincoln 
emphatically disowned holding, and set himself right as to the 
views he did entertain with regard to the black race and the 
great question of slavery, which he sought not to interfere with in 
the States where it existed, but to prevent its extension. 
Douglas's catechizings of Lincoln the latter answers skilfully and 
effectively, though, unlike his adversary, honestly and without 
prevarication or sophistry. At the next meeting — at Freeport, 
111. — Lincoln turns the tables upon Mr. Douglas by interrogating 
him upon some embarrassing but vital points, his answers to 
which, he shrewdly concluded, would alienate the South from 
him, though it might, and probably would, add to his popularity 
in his own Illinois State. Lincoln's success in wringing these 
admissions from Douglas showed great sagacity on Lincoln's 
part, while manifesting his "intuitive perception of • the common 
sense of the situation "]. 

I WILL say here, that I have no purpose, either 
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution 
of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I 
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination 
to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and 
social equality between the white and the black races. 
There is a physical difference between the two, which, 
in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their liv- 
ing together upon the footing of perfect equality; and 
inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be 
a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor 
of the race to which I belong having the superior posi- 
tion, I have never said anything to the contrary, but 
I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason 
in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIN"COLN. 95 

natural riglits enumerated in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence — the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to 
these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas 
he is not mj equal in many respects^certainly not in 
color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endow- 
ment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the 
leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is 
my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal 
of every living man. 

Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these 
little follies. The judge is woefully at fault about his 
early friend Lincoln being a " grocery-keeper." I don't 
know that it would be a great sin if I had been ; but he 
is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in 
the world. It is true that Lincoln did work the latter 
part of one winter in a little still-house up at the head 
of a hollow. And so I think my friend, the judge, is 
equally at'fault when he charges me at the time when 
I was in Congress of having opposed our soldiers who 
were fighting in the Mexican War. The judge did not 
make his charge very distinctly, but I tell you what he 
can prove, by referring to the record. You remember 
I was an Old Whig, and whenever the Democratic 
party tried to get me to vote that the war had been 
righteously begun by the President, I would not do it. 
But whenever they' asked for any money, or land-war- 
rants, or anything to pay the soldiers there, during all 
that time, I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did. 
You can think as you please as to whether that was con- 
sistent. Such is the truth ; and the judge has the right 
to make all he can out of it. But when he, by a general 
charge, conveys the idea that I withheld supplies from 
the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War, or 
did anything else to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the 
least, grossly and altogether mistaken, as a consulta- 
tion of the records will prove to him. 

As I have not used up so much of my time as I had 



96 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

supposed, I will dwell a little longer upon one or two 
of these minor topics upon which the judge has spoken. 
He has read from my speech in Springfield in which I 
say that " a house divided against itself cannot stand." 
Does the judge say it can stand? I don't know whether 
he does or not. The judge does not seem to be attend- 
ing to me just now, but I Avould like to know if it is his 
opinion that a house divided against itself can stand. 
If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not be- 
tween him and me, but between the judge and an 
authority of a somewhat higher character. 

Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter 
for the purpose of saying something seriously. I know 
that the judge may readily enough agree with me that 
the maxim which was put forth by the Saviour is true, 
but he may allege that I misapply it; and the judge has 
a right to urge that in my application I do misapply it, 
and then I have a right to show that I do not misapply 
it. When he undertakes to say that because I think 
this nation, so far as the question of slavery is con- 
cerned, will all become one thing or all the other, I am 
in favor of bringing about a dead uniformity in the 
various States in all their institutions, he argues errone- 
ously^. The great variety of the local institutions in 
the States, springing from differences in the soil, dif- 
ferences in the face of the country, and in the climate, 
are bonds of union. They do not make " a house di- 
vided against itself," but they make a house united. 
If they produce in one section of the country what is 
called for by the wants of another section, and this 
other section can supply the wants of the first, they are 
not matters of discord but bonds of union, true bonds of 
union. But can this question of slavery be considered 
as among these varieties in the institutions of the coun- 
try? I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of 
our government, this institution of slavery has not 
always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the con- 
trary, been an apple of discord and an element of divi- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 97 

sion in tlie house. I ask jou to consider whether, so 
long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall 
continue to be the same, after this generation and as- 
semblage shall sink into the grave, and another race 
shall arise with the same moral and intellectual devel- 
opment we have — whether, if that institution is stand- 
ing in the same irritating position in which it now is, 
it will not continue an element of division? 

If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to 
this question, the Union is a house divided against it- 
self; and when the judge reminds me that I have often 
said to him that the institution of slavery has existed 
for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not 
exist in some others, I agree to the fact, and I account 
for it by looking at the position in which our fathers 
originally jdaced it — restricting it from the new Ter- 
ritories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off 
its source by the abrogation of the slave-trade, thus put- 
ting the seal of legislation against its spread. The 
public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the 
course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think — ■ 
and in this I charge nothing on the judge's motives — 
lately, I think, that he, and those acting with him, have 
placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to 
the perpetuit}^ and nationalization of slavery. And 
while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I 
have said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon 
the question until the opponents of slavery arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public 
mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction; or, on the other hand, that its 
advocates will push it forward until it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North 
as well as South. Now I believe if we could arrest the 
si)read, and place it where Washington and Jefferson 
and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of 
ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, as for 
eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of 
7 



j98 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LmCOL^T. 

ultimate extinction. The crisis would be past, and the 
institution might be let alone for a hundred years — if it 
should live so long — in the States where it exists, yet it 
would be going out of existence in' the way best for both 
the black and the white races. [A voice : " Then do you 
repudiate popular sovereignty?"] Well, then, let us 
talk about popular sovereignty! What is popular 
sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have 
slavery or not have it, as they see fit, in the Territories? 
I will state — and I have an able man to watch me — my 
understanding is that popular sovereignty, as now ap- 
plied to the question of slavery, does allow the people 
of a Territory to have slavery if they want to, but does 
not allow them not to have it if they do not want it. 
I do not mean that if this vast concourse of people were 
in a Territory of the United States, any one of them 
would be obliged to have a slave if he did not want one ; 
but T do say that, as I understand the Dred Scott 
decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have 
no way of keeping that one man from holding them. 

When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the 
judge complains, and from which he quotes, I really 
was not thinking of the things which he ascribes to me 
at all. I had no thought in the world that I was doing 
anything to bring about a war between the free and 
slave States. I had no thought in the world that I was 
doing anything to bring about a political and social 
equality of the black and white races. It never oc- 
curred to me that I was doing anything or favoring any- 
thing to reduce to a dead uniformity all the local in- 
stitutions of the various States. But I must say, in 
all fairness to him, if he thinks I am doing something 
which leads to these bad results, it is none the better 
that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal to the coun- 
try, if I have any influence in producing it, whether I 
intend it or not. But can it be true, that placing this 
institution upon the original basis — the basis upon 
v.'hich our fathers placed it — can have any tendency to 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 99 

set the Northern and the Southern States at war with 
one another, or that it can have any tendency to malie 
the people of Vermont raise sugar-cane because they 
raise it in Louisiana, or that it can compel the people 
of Illinois to cut pine logs on the Grand Prairie, where 
they will not grow, because they cut pine logs in Maine, 
where they do grow? The judge says this is a new prin- 
ciple started in regard to this question. ' Does the judge 
claim that he is working on the plan of the founders of 
the government? I think he says in some of his 
speeches — indeed, I have one here now — that he saw 
evidence of a policy to allow slavery to be south of a 
certain line, while north of it, it should be excluded, and 
he saw an indisposition on the part of the country to 
stand upon that policy, and therefore he set about 
studying the subject upon original principles, and upon 
original principles he got up the Nebraska bill ! I am 
fighting it upon these '' original principles " — fighting 
it in the Jeffersonian, Washingtonian, and Madi- 
sonian fashion. 

Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little 
while to one or two other things in that Springfield 
speech. My main object was to show, so far as my 
humble ability was capable of showing to the people ol' 
this country, what I believe was the truth — that there 
was a tendency, if not a conspiracy, among those who 
have engineered this slavery question for the last four 
or five years, to make slavery perpetual and universal 
in this nation. Having made that speech principally 
for that object, after arranging the evidences that I 
thought tended to prove my proposition, I concluded 
with this bit of comment : 



We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations are 
the result of pre-concert, but when we see a lot of framed timbers, 
different portions of which we know have been gotten out at 
different times and places, and by different workmen — Stephen, 
Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance : and when we see 
these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the 



100 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



frame of a house or a milL all the tenons and mortices exactly 
fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces 
exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too 
many or too few, — not omitting even the scaffolding, — or if a 
single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly 
fitted and prepared to yet bring such pieces in — in such a case we 
feel it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin, and 
Roger and James, all understood one another from the beginning, 
and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before the 
first blow was struck. 

When my friend, Judge Douglas, came to Chicago on 
the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered on the 
16th of June, he made an harangue there in which he 
took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had 
carefully read it ; and while he paid no attention to this 
matter at all, but complimented me as being a " kind, 
amiable, and intelligent gentleman," notwithstanding 
I had said this, he goes on and deduces, or draws out, 
from my speech this tendency of mine to set the States 
at war with one another, to make all the institutions 
uniform, and set the niggers and white people to marry 
together. Then, as the judge had complimented me 
with these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weak- 
ness), I was a little " taken," for it came from a great 
man. I was not very much accustomed to flattery, and 
it came the sweeter to me. I was rather like the 
Hoosier with the gingerbread, when he said he reck- 
oned he loved it better than any other man, and got less 
of it. As the judge had so flattered me, I could not 
make up my mind that he meant to deal unfairly with 
me; so I went to work to show him that he misunder- 
stood the whole scope of my speech, and that I really 
never intended to set the people at war with one an- 
other. As an illustration, the next time I met him, 
which was at Springfield, I used this expression, that 
I claimed no right under the Constitution, nor had 
I any inclination, to enter into the slave States and 
interfere with the institutions of slavery. He says 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. JQI 

upon that : Lincoln will not enter into the slave States, 
but will go to the banks of the Ohio, on this side, and 
shoot over! He runs on, step by step, in the horse- 
chestnut style of argument, until in the Springfield 
speech he says, '' Unless he shall be successful in fir- 
ing his batteries, until he shall have extinguished 
slavery in all the States, the Union shall be dissolved." 
Now I don't think that was exactly the way to treat 
" a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." I know if I 
had asked the judge to show when or where it was I 
had said, that if I didn't succeed in firing into the 
slave States until slavery should be extinguished, the 
Union sliould be dissolved, he could not have shown it. 
I understand what he would do. He would say, " I 
don't mean to quote from you, but this was the result of 
what you say." But I have the right to ask, and I do 
ask now, did you not put it in such a form that an or- 
dinary reader or listener would take it as an expression 
from me? 

In a speech at Springfield on the night of the 17th, 
I thought I might as well attend to my business a 
little, and I recalled his attention as well as I could to 
this charge of conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I 
called his attention to the fact that he had acknowl- 
edged in my hearing twice that he had carefully read 
the speech ; and, in the language of the lawyers, as 
he had twice read the speech, and still had put in no 
plea or answer, I took a default on him. I insisted that 
I had a right then to renew that charge of conspiracy. 
Ten days afterward I met the judge at Clinton — that is 
to say, I was on the ground, but not in the discussion 
— and heard him make a speech. Then he comes in with 
his plea to this charge, for the first time, and his plea 
when put in, as well as I can recollect it, amounted to 
this : that he never had any talk with Judge Taney or 
the President of the United States with regard to the 
Dred Scott decision before it was made. I (Lincoln) 
ought to know that the man who makes a charge with- 



102 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

out knowing it to be true, falsifies as much as he who 
knowingly tells a falsehood ; and lastly, that he would 
pronounce the whole thing a falsehood ; but he would 
make no personal application of the charge of false- 
hood, not because of any regard for the " kind, amiable, 
intelligent gentleman," but because of his own personal 
self-respect! I have understood since then (but [turn- 
ing to Judge Douglas] will not hold the judge to it if he 
is not willing) that he has broken through the " self- 
respect," and has got to saying the thing out. The 
judge nods to me that it is so. It is fortunate for me 
that I can keep as good-humored as I do, when the judge 
acknowledges that he has been trying to make a ques- 
tion of veracity with me. I know the judge is a great 
man, while I am only a small man, but I feel that I 
have got him. I demur to that plea. I waive all ob- 
jections that it was not filed till after default was 
taken, and demur to it upon the merits. What if Judge 
Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and 
the President before the Dred Scott decision was made; 
does it follow that he could not have had as perfect an 
understanding without talking as with it? I am not 
disposed to stand upon my legal advantage. I am dis- 
posed to take his denial as being like an answer in 
chancery, that he neither had any knowledge, informa- 
tion, nor belief in the existence of such a conspiracy. 
I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad as 
though he had put it in these words. And now, I ask, 
even if he had done so, have not I a right to prove it on 
him, and to offer the evidence of more than two wit- 
nesses, by whom to prove it; and if the evidence proves 
the existence of the conspiracy, does his broad answer, 
denying all knowledge, information, or belief, disturb 
the fact? It can only show that he was used by con- 
spirators, and was not a leader of them. 

Now, in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule 
that persons who tell what they do not know to be true, 
falsify as much as those who knowingly tell falsehoods. 



SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLI^. 103 

1 remember the rule, and it must be borne in mind that 
in what I have read to you, I do not say that I know 
such a conspiracy to exist. To that I reply, I believe 
it. If the judge says that I do not believe it, then he 
says what he does not know, and falls within his own 
rule that he who asserts a thing which he does not know 
to be true, falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells 
a falsehood. I want to call your attention to a little 
discussion on that branch of the case, and the evidence 
which brought my mind to the conclusion which I ex- 
pressed as my belief. If, in arraying that evidence, I 
had stated anything which was false or erroneous, it 
needed but that Judge Douglas should point it out, and 
I would have taken it back with all the kindness in the 
world. I do not deal in that way. If I have brought 
forward anything not a fact, if he will point it out, it 
will not even ruffle me to take it back. But if he will 
not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, is it 
not rather for him to show by a comparison of the 
evidence that I have reasoned falsely, than to call the 
"kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman" a liar? If I 
have reasoned to a false conclusion, it is the vocation of 
an able debater to show by argument that I have wan- 
dered to an erroneous conclusion. I want to ask your 
attention to a portion of the Nebraska bill which 
Judge Douglas has quoted : " It being the true intent 
and meaning of this act, not to legislate slavery into 
any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, 
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form 
and regulate their domestic institutions in their own 
way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." Thereupon Judge Douglas and others began 
to argue in favor of " popular sovereignty " — the right 
of the people to have slaves if they wanted them, and to 
exclude slavery if they did not want them. " But," 
said, in substance, a senator from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I 
believe), " we more than suspect that you do not mean 
to allow the people to exclude slavery if they wish to; 



J04 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

and if you do mean it, accept an amendment which 1 
propose expressly authorizing the people to exclude 
slavery." I believe I have the amendment here before 
me, which was offered, and under which the people of 
the Territory, through their proper representatives, 
might, if they saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery 
therein. And now I state it as a fact, to be taken back 
if there is any mistake about it, that Judge Douglas 
and those acting with him voted that amendment down. 
I now think that those men who voted it down had a 
real reason for doing so. They know what that reason 
was. It looks to us, since we have seen the Dred Scott 
decision pronounced, holding that, " under the Consti- 
tution," the people cannot exclude slavery — T say it 
looks to outsiders, poor, simple, " amiable, intelligent 
gentlemen," as though the niche was left as a place to 
put that Dred Scott decision in, a niche which would 
have been spoiled by adopting the amendment. And 
now I say again, if this was not the reason, it will 
avail the judge much more to calmly and good- 
humoredly point out to these people what that other 
reason was for voting the amendment down, than 
swelling himself up to vociferate that he may be pro- 
voked to call somebody a liar. 

Again : there is in that same quotation from the Ne- 
braska bill this clause: "It being the true intent and 
meaning of this bill not to legislate slavery into any 
Territory or State." I have always been puzzled to 
know what business the word " State " had in that 
connection. Judge Douglas knows. He put it there. 
He knows what he put it there for. We outsiders 
cannot say what he put it there for. The law they 
were passing was not about States, and was not making 
provision for States. What was it placed there for? 
After seeing the Dred Scott decision which holds that 
the people canot exclude slavery from a Territory, if 
another Dred Scott decision shall come, holding that 
they cannot exclude it from a State, we shall discover 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^QS 

that when the word was originally pnt there, it was in 
view of something which was to come in due time, we 
shall see that it was the other half of something. I 
now say again, if there is any different reason for 
putting it there, Judge Douglas, in a good-humored 
way, without calling anybody a liar, can tell what the 
reason was. 

Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the sub- 
ject, in the little time I have left, to which to call your 
attention, and as I shall come to a close at the end of 
that branch, it is probable that I shall not occupy quite 
all the time allotted to me. Although on these ques- 
tions I would like to talk twice as long as I have, I 
could not enter upon another bead and discuss it 
properly without running over my time. I ask the 
attention of the people here assembled and elsewhere, 
to the course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every 
day as bearing upon this question of making slavery 
national. Not going back to the records, but taking 
the speeches he makes, the speeches he made yesterday 
and day before, and makes constantly all over the 
country — I ask your attention to them. In the first 
place, what is necessary to make the institution na- 
tional ? Not war. There is no danger that the people 
of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets, and, with a 
young nigger stuck on every bayonet, march into Illi- 
nois and force them upon us. There is no danger of 
our going over there and making war upon them. Then 
what is necessary for the nationalization of slavery? 
It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It is merely 
for the Supreme Court to decide that no State under 
the Constitution can exclude it, just as they have al- 
ready decided that under the Constitution neither Con- 
gress nor the territorial legislature can do it. When 
that is decided and acquiesced in, the whole thing ia 
done. This being true, and this being the way, as I 
think, that slavery is to be made national, let us con- 
sider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that 



106 SPEECHES OP ABKAHA^I LINCOLN. 

end. In the first place, let us see what influence he is 
exerting on public sentiment. In this and like com- 
munities, public sentiment is everything. With public 
sentiment, nothing can fail ; without it, nothing can 
succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment 
goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces 
decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible 
or impossible to be executed. This must be borne in 
mind, as also the additional fact that Judge Douglas 
is a man of vast influence, so great that it is enough for 
many men to profess to believe anything when they 
once find out that Judge Douglas professes to believe it. 
Consider also the attitude he occupies at the head of 
a large party — a party which he claims has a majority 
of all the voters in the country. 

This man sticks to a decision which forbids the peo- 
ple of a Territory to exclude slavery, and he does so 
not because he says it is right in itself, — he does not 
give any opinion on that, — but because it has been 
decided by the court, and, being decided by the court, 
he is, and you are, bound to take it in your political 
action as law — not that he judges at all of its merits, 
but because a decision of the court is to him a " Thus 
saith the Lord." He places it on that ground alone, 
and you will bear in mind that thus committing himself 
unreservedly to this decision, commits him to the next 
one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit him- 
self on account of the merit or demerit of the decision, 
but it is a " Thus saith the Lord." The next decision, 
as much as this, will be a " Thus saith the Lord." 
There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from 
this decision. It is nothing that I point out to him 
that his great prototype, General Jackson, did not 
believe in the binding force of decisions. It is nothing 
to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said 
that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's course 
in disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court pro- 
nouncing a national bank constitutional. He says I 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 107 

did not hear him say so. He denies the accuracy of my 
recollection. I say he ought to know better than I, but 
I will make no question about this thing, though it 
still seems to me that I heard him say it twenty times. 
I will tell him though, that he now claims to stand on 
the Cincinnati platform, which affirms that Congress 
cannot charter a national bank, in the teeth of that old 
standing decision that Congress can charter a bank. 
And I remind him of another piece of history on the 
question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a 
piece of Illinois history, belonging to a time when a 
large party to which Judge Douglas belonged were dis- 
pleased with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illi- 
nois, because they had decided that a governor could 
not remove a secretary of state. You will find the 
whole story in Ford's " History of Illinois," and I 
know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he was 
then in favor of oversloughing that decision by the 
mode of adding five new judges, so as to vote down the 
four old ones. Not only so, but it ended in the judge's 
sitting down on the very bench as one of the five new 
judges to break down the four old ones. It was in this 
way precisely that he got his title of judge. Now, 
when the judge tells me that men appointed condition- 
ally to sit as members of a court will have to be 
catechised beforehand upon some subject, I say, " You 
know, judge; you have tried it." When he says a 
court of this kind will lose the confidence of all men, 
will be prostituted and disgraced by such a proceed- 
ing, I say, "You know best, judge; you have been 
through the mill." 

But I cannot shake Judge Douglas's teeth loose from 
the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal 
(I mean no disrespect) that will hang on when he has 
once got his teeth fixed, — you may cut off a leg, or you 
may tear awaj- an arm, still he will not relax his hold. 
And so I may point out to the judge, and say that he is 
bespattered all over, from the beginning of his political 



108 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

life to the x>resent time, with attacks upon judicial 
decisions, — I may cut off limb after limb of his public 
record, and strive to wrench from him a single dictum 
of the court, yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs 
to the last to the Dred Scott decision. These things 
show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity for 
which he adheres to this decision, and for which he will 
adhere to all other decisions of the same court. [A 
Hibernian: "Give us something besides Drid Scott."] 
Yes; no doubt you want to hear something that don't 
hurt. Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, 
one more word and I am done. Henry Clay, my beau 
ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all 
my humble life — Henry Clay once said of a class of 
men who would repress all tendencies to liberty and 
ultimate emancipation, that they must, if they would 
do this, go back to the era of our independence, and 
muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joy- 
ous return ; they must blow out the moral lights around 
us ; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate 
there the love of liberty; and then, and not till then, 
could they perpetuate slavery in this country ! To 
my thinking. Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast 
influence, doing that very thing in this community 
when he says that the negro has nothing in the Declara- 
tion of Independence. Henry Clay plainly understood 
the contrary. Judge Douglas is going back to the era 
of our Kevolution, and to the extent of his ability muz- 
zling the cannon which thunders its annual joyous 
return. When he invites any people, willing to have 
slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the moral 
lights around us. When he says he " cares not whethei* 
slavery is voted down or voted up " — that it is a sacred 
right of self-government — he is, in my judgment, pene- 
trating the human soul and eradicating the light of 
reason and the love of liberty in this American people. 
And now I will only say that when, by all these means 
and appliances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in bring- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^09 

ing public sentiment to an exact accordance with his 
own views — when these vast assemblages shall echo 
back all these sentiments — when thev shall come to re- 
])eat his views and to avow his principles, and to say all 
that he says on these mighty questions— then it needs 
only the formality of the second Dred Scott decision, 
which he indorses in advance, to make slavery alike 
lawful in all the States — old as well as new, North as 
well as South. 



-^IQ SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



SPEECH AT FREEPOKT, ILL., (THE SECOND OF 
THE DEBATES WITH DOUGLAS), WITH RE- 
JOINDER, AUG. 27, 1858. 

[Here is the substance of the second discussion with Judge 
Douglas on the leading political topics that at the time agitated 
the country. It containsj it will be seen, Lincoln's answers to 
Douglas's seven interrogatories, and the four questions he, so 
far, propounds to Douglas, and calls upon him for replies. Of 
these four questions, an entangling one is the second, which 
reads: "Can the people of a United States Territory, in any 
lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, 
exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a 
State Constitution ? " Judge Douglas's answer was in the 
affirmative, and the admission was, as Lincoln foresaw, un- 
palatable to the South, and fatal to Douglas when in the running, 
two years later, for the Presidency. It was a tactical thing in 
Lincoln to wrest this admission from his great adversary, since to 
assert that a territorial legislature could enact laws hostile to 
slavery was certain to offend Southern democrats and nullify 
the Dred Scott decision. To extort this admission from Douglas 
was therefore just what Lincoln wanted and obtained, and 
though it lost him the Illinois senatorship, it put Douglas out of 
the running for the Presidency]. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: On Saturday last, Judge 
Douglas and myself first met in public discussion. 
He spoke one hour, I an hour and a half, and he replied 
for half an hour. The order is now reversed. I am to 
speak an hour, he an hour and a half, and then I am to 
reply for half an hour. I propose to devote myself dur- 
ing the first hour to the scope of what was brought 
within the range of his half-hour speech at Ottawa. 
Of course there was brought within the scope of that 
half-hour's speech something of his own opening speech. 
In the course of that opening argument Judge Douglas 
proposed to me seven distinct interrogatories. In my 
speech of an hour and a half, I attended to some other 
parts of his speech, and incidentally, as I thought. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAJI LINCOLN. 1^1 

answered one of the interrogatories then. I then dis- 
tinctly intimated to him that I would answer the rest 
of his interrogatories on condition only that he should 
agree to answer as many for me. He made no intima- 
tion at the time of the proposition, nor did he in his re- 
ply allude at all to that suggestion of mine. I do him 
no injustice in saying that he occupied at least half of 
his reply in dealing with me as though I had refused to 
answer his interrogatories. I now propose that I will 
answer any of the interrogatories, upon condition 
that he will answer questions from me not exceeding 
the same number. 1 give him an opportunity to re- 
spond. The judge remains silent. I now say that I 
will answer his interrogatories, whether he answers 
mine or not; and that after I have done so, I shall pro- 
pound mine to him. 

I have supposed myself, since the organization of 
the Kepublican party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, 
bound as a party man by the platforms of the party 
then and since. If in any interrogatories which I shall 
answer I go bejond the scope of what is within these 
platforms, it will be perceived that no one is respon- 
sible but myself. Having said this much, I will take 
up the judge's interrogatories as I find them printed in 
the Chicago *' Times," and answer them seriatim. In 
order that there may be no mistake about it, I have 
copied the interrogatories in writing, and also my 
answers to them. The first one of these interrogatories 
is in these words : 

Question 1. '* I desire to know whether Lincoln to- 
day stands as he did in 1854, in favor of the uncon- 
ditional repeal of the fugitive-slave law?" 

Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor 
of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive-slave law. 

Q. 2. " I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to-day as he did in 1854, against the admission 
of any more slave States into the Union, even if the 
people want them ? " 



112 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against 
the admission of any more slave States into the Union. 

Q. 3. '' I want to know whether he stands pledged 
against the admission of a new State into the Union 
with such a constitution as the people of that State 
may see fit to make?" 

A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of 
a new State into the Union with such a constitution as 
the people of that State may see fit to make. 

Q. 4. " I want to know whether he stands to-day 
pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia?" 

A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia. 

Q. 5. " I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the 
different States?" 

A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of 
the slave-trade between the different States. 

Q. 6. " I desire to know whether he stands pledged 
to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United 
States, North as well as South of the Missouri Com- 
promise line? " 

A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a 
belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit 
slavery in all the United States Territories. 

Q. 7. " I desire him to answer whether he is opposed 
to the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery 
is first prohibited therein?" 

A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition 
of territory; and, in any given case, I would or would 
not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might 
think such acquisition would or would not aggravate 
the slavery question among ourselves. 

Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an exami- 
nation of these questions and answers, that so far I have 
only answered that I was not pledged to this, that, or 
the other. The judge has not framed his interrogator- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAJkl LINCOLN. 113 

ies to ask me anything more than this, and I have an- 
swered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, 
and have answered truly that I am not pledged at all 
upon any of the points to which I have answered. But 
I am not disposed to hang upon the exact form of hia 
interrogatory. I am really disposed to take up at least 
some of these questions, and state what I really think 
upon them. 

As to the first one, in regard to the fugitive-slave 
law, I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now 
hesitate to say, that I think, under the Constitution of 
the United States, the people of the Southern States 
are entitled to a congressional fugitive-slave law. Hav- 
ing said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the 
existing fugitive-slave law, further than that I think it 
should have been framed so as to be free from some of 
the objections that pertain to it, without lessening its 
efiiciency. And inasmuch as we are not now in an 
agitation in regard to an alteration or modification of 
that law, I would not be the man to introduce it as a 
new subject of agitation upon the general question of 
slavery. 

In regard to the other question, of whether I am 
])ledged to the admission of any more slave States into 
the Union, I state to you very frankly that I would be 
exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of hav- 
ing to pass upon that question. I should be exceed- 
ingly glad to know that there would never be another 
slave State admitted into the Union; but I must add, 
that if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories dur- 
ing the territorial existence of any one given Territory, 
and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a 
clear field, when they come to adopt the Constitution, 
do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave 
constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the 
institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own 
the country, but to admit them into the Union. 

The third interrogatory is answered by the answer 
8 



114 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to the second, it being, as I conceive, the same as the 
second. 

The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia. In relation to that, I have 
my mind very distinctly made up. I should be exceed- 
ingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of 
Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the con- 
stitutional power to abolish it. Yet as a member of 
Congress, I should not with my present views be in 
favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia unless it would be upon these conditions : 
First, that the abolition should be gradual ; second, 
that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified 
voters in the District; and third, that compensation 
should be made to unwilling owners. With these three 
conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see 
Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, 
and, in the language of Henry Clay, " sweep from our 
capital that foul blot upon our nation." 

In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here 
that as to the question of the abolition of the slave- 
trade between the different States, I can truly answer, 
as I have, that I am pledged to nothing about it. It 
is a subject to which I have not given that mature con- 
sideration that would make me feel authorized to state 
a position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. 
In other words, that question has never been prom- 
inently enough before me to induce me to investigate 
whether we really have the constitutional power to do 
it. I could investigate it if I had sufficient time to 
bring myself to a conclusion upon that subject, but I 
have not done so, and I say so frankly to you here and 
to Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that if I 
should be of opinion that Congress does possess the con- 
stitutional power to abolish the slave-trade among the 
different States, I should still not be in favor of the 
exercise of that power unless upon some conservative 
principle as I conceive it;, akin to what I have said in 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. II5 

relation to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia. 

My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should 
be prohibited in all the Territories of the United States 
is full and explicit within itself, and cannot be made 
clearer by any comments of mine. So I suppose in re- 
gard to the question whether I am opposed to the ac- 
quisition of any more territory unless slavery is first 
prohibited therein, m^^ answer is such that I could add 
nothing by way of illustration, or making myself better 
understood, than the answer which I have placed iii 
writing. 

Now in all this the judge has me, and he has me on 
the record. I suppose he had flattered himself that 1 
was really entertaining one set of opinions for one 
place and another set for another place — that I was 
afraid to say at one place what I uttered at another. 
What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast 
audience as strongly tending to Abolitionism as any 
audience in the State of Illinois, and I believe I am 
saying that which, if it would be offensive to any per- 
sons and render them enemies to myself, would be 
offensive to persons in this audience. 

I now proceed to propound to the judge the interro- 
gatories so far as I have framed them. I will bring 
forward a new instalment when I get them ready. I 
will bring them forward now, only reaching to number 
four. 

The first one is : 

Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means 
entirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a 
State constitution, and ask admission into the Union 
under it, before they have the requisite number of in- 
habitants according to the English bill, — some ninety- 
three thousand, — will you vote to admit them? 

Q. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in 
any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the 



IIQ SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLKf. 

United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior 
to the formation of a State constitution? 

Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States 
shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from 
their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopt- 
ing, and following such decision as a rule of political 
action? 

Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional terri- 
tory, in disregard of how such acquisition may affect 
the nation on the slavery question? 

As introductory to these interrogatories which Judge 
Douglas propounded to me at Ottawa, he read a set of 
resolutions which he said Judge Trumbull and my- 
self had participated in adopting, in the first Repub- 
lican State convention, held at Springfield, in October, 
1S54. He insisted that I and Judge Trumbull, and per- 
haps the entire Republican party, were responsible 
for the doctrines contained in the set of resolutions 
which he read, and I understand that it was from that 
set of resolutions that he deduced the interrogatories 
which he propounded to me, using these resolutions as 
a sort of authority for propounding those questions to 
me. Now I say here to-day that I do not answer his 
interrogatories because of their springing at all from 
that set of resolutions which he read. I answered 
them because Judge Douglas thought fit to ask them. 
I do not now, nor ever did, recognize any responsibility 
upon myself in that set of resolutions. When I replied 
to him on that occasion, I assured him that I never had 
anything to do with them. I repeat here to-day, that 
I never in any possible form had anything to do with 
that set of resolutions. It turns out, I believe, that 
those resolutions were never passed at any convention 
held in Springfield. It turns out that they were never 
passed at an}' convention or any public meeting that 
I had any part in. I believe it turns out, in addition 
to all this, that there was not, in the fall of 1854, any 
convention holding a session in Springfield calling it- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^^ 

self a Rei)ublican State convention; yet it is true there 
was a convention, or assemblage of men calling them- 
selves a convention, at Springfield, that did pass some 
resolutions. But so little did I realh' know of the pro- 
ceedings of that convention, or what set of resolutions 
they had passed, though having a general knowledge 
that there had been such an assemblage of men there, 
that when Judge Douglas read the resolutions, I really 
did not know but that they had been the resolutions 
passed then and there. I did not question that they 
were the resolutions adopted. For I could not bring 
myself to suppose that Judge Douglas could say what 
he did upon this subject without knowing that it was 
true. I contented nnself, on that occasion, with deny- 
ing, as I truly could, all connection with them, not 
denying or affirming whether they were passed at 
Springfield. Now it turns out that he had got hold of 
some resolutions passed at some convention or public 
meeting in Kane County. I wish to say here, that I 
don't conceive that in any fair and just mind this dis- 
covery relieves me at all. I had just as much to do with 
the convention in Kane County as that at Springfield. 
I am just as much responsible for the resolutions at 
Kane County as those at Springfield, the amount of the 
responsibility being exactly nothing in either case; no 
more than there would be in regard to a set of resolu- 
tions passed in the moon. 

I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass 
for some further purpose than anything yet advanced. 
Judge Douglas did not make his statement upon that 
occasion as matters that he believed to be true, but he 
stated them roundly as being true, in such form as to 
pledge his veracity for their truth. When the whole 
matter turns out as it does, and when we consider who 
Judge Douglas is, — that he is a distinguished senator 
of the United States; that he has served nearly twelve 
years as such; that his character is not at all limited 
as an ordinary senator of the United States, but that 



llg SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

his name has become of world-wide renown, — it is most 
extraordinary that he should so far forget all the sug- 
gestions of justice to an adversary, or of prudence to 
himself, as to venture upon the assertion of that which 
the slightest investigation would have shown him to 
be wholly false. I can only account for his having 
done so upon the supposition that that evil genius 
which has attended him through his life, giving to 
him an apparent astonishing prosperity, such as to 
lead very many good men to doubt there being any ad- 
vantage in virtue over vice — I say I can only account 
for it on the supposition that that evil genius has at 
last made up its mind to forsake him. 

And I may add that another extraordinary feature 
of the judge's conduct in this canvass — made more ex- 
traordinary by this incident — is, that he is in the habit, 
in almost all the speeches he makes, of charging false- 
hood upon his adversaries, myself and others. I now 
ask whether he is able to find in anything that Judge 
Trumbull, for instance, has said, or in anything that I 
have said, a justification at all compared with what we 
have, in this instance, for that sort of vulgarity. 

I have been in the habit of charging as a matter of 
belief on my part, that, in the introduction of the Ne- 
braska bill into Congress, there was a conspiracy to 
make slavery perpetual and national. T have arranged 
from time to time the evidence which establishes and 
proves the truth of this charge. I recurred to this 
charge at Ottawa. I shall not now have time to dwell 
upon it at very great length ; but inasmuch as Judge 
Douglas in his reply of half an hour made some points 
upon me in relation to it, I propose noticing a few of 
them. 

The judge insists that, in the first speech I made, in 
which I very distinctly made that charge, he thought 
for a good while 1 was in fun — that I was playful — 
that I was not sincere about it — and that he only grew 
angry and somewhat excited when he found that I 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 1^9 

insisted upon it as a matter of earnestness. He says 
he characterized it as a falsehood as far as I implicated 
his moral character in that transaction. Well, I did 
not know, till he presented that view, that I had impli- 
cated his moral character. He is very much in the 
habit, when he argues me up into a position I never 
thought of occupying, of very cozlly saving he has no 
doubt Lincoln is *' conscientious " in saying so. He 
should remember that I did not know but what he was 
altogether " conscientious " in that matter. I can con- 
ceive it possible for men to conspire to do a good thing, 
and I really find nothing in Judge Douglas's course of 
arguments that is contrary to or inconsistent with his 
belief of a conspiracy to nationalize and spread slavery 
as being a good and blessed thing, and so I hope he will 
understand that I do not at all question but that in all 
this matter he is entirely " conscientious." 

But to draw your attention to one of the points I 
made in this case, beginning at the beginning. When 
the Nebraska bill was introduced, or a short time after- 
ward, by an amendment, I believe, it was provided that 
it must be considered " the true intent and meaning 
of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or 
Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 
own domestic institutions in their own M-ay, subject 
only to the Constitution of the United States." I 
have called his attention to the fact that when he and 
some others began arguing that they were giving an in- 
creased degree of liberty to the people in the Territories 
over and above what they formerly had on the question 
of slavery, a question was raised whether the law was 
enacted to give such unconditional liberty to the peo- 
ple; and to test the sincerity of this mode of argu- 
ment, Mr. Chase, of Ohio, introduced an amendment, in 
which he made the law — if the amendment were 
adopted— expressly declare that the people of the Terri- 
tory should have the power to exclude slavery if they 



120 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

saw fit. I have asked attention also to the fact that 
Judge Douglas, and those who acted with him, voted 
that amendment down, notwithstanding it expressed 
exactly the thing they said was the true intent and 
meaning of the law. I have called attention to the fact 
that in subsequent times a decision of the Supreme 
Court has been made in which it has been declared that 
a Territorial Legislature has no constitutional right to 
exclude slavery. And I have argued and said that for 
men who did intend that the people of the Territory 
should have the right to exclude slavery absolutely and 
unconditionally, the voting down of Chase's amend- 
ment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle — a riddle. 
But I have said that with men who did look forward 
to such a decision, or who had it in contemplation 
that such a decision of the Supreme Court would or 
might be made, the voting down of that amendment 
would be perfectly rational and intelligible. It would 
keep Congress from coming in collision with the decis- 
ion when it was made. Anybody can conceive that if 
there was an intention or expectation that such a decis- 
ion was to follow, it would not be a very desirable party 
attitude to get into for the Supreme Court — all or 
nearly all its members belonging to the same party — to 
decide one way, when the party in Congress had decided 
the other way. Hence it would be very rational for men 
expecting such a decision to keep the niche in that law 
clear for it. After pointing this out, I tell Judge Doug- 
las that it looks to me as though here was the reason 
why Chase's amendment was voted down. I tell him 
that as he did it, and knows why he did it, if it was 
done for a reason different from this, he knows what 
that reason was, and can tell us what it was. I tell 
him, also, it will be vastly more satisfactory to the 
country for him to give some other plausible, in- 
telligible reason why it was voted down than to stand 
upon his dignity and call people liars. Well, on Satur- 
day he did make his answer, and what do you think it 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 12 1 

was? He says if I had only taken upon myself to tell 
the whole truth about that amendment of Chase's, no 
explanation would have been necessary on his part — or 
words to that effect. Now I say here that I am quite 
unconscious of having suppressed anything material 
to the case, and I am very frank to admit if there is any 
sound reason other than that which appeared to me 
material, it is quite fair for him to present it. What 
reason does he propose? That when Chase came for- 
ward with his amendment expressly authorizing the 
people to exclude slavery from the limits of everj" Ter- 
ritory, General Cass proposed to Chase, if he (Chase) 
would add to his amendment that the people should 
have the power to introduce or exclude, they would let 
it go. 

This is substantially all of his reply. And because 
Chase would not do that they voted his amendment 
down. Well, it turns out, I believe, upon examination, 
that General Cass took some part in the little running 
debate upon that amendment, and then ran away and 
did not vote on it at all. Is not that the fact? So con- 
fident, as I think, was General Cass that there was a 
snake somewhere about, he chose to run away from the 
whole thing. This is an inference I draw from the fact 
that though he took part in the debate his name does 
not appear in the ayes and noes. But does Judge Doug- 
las's reply amount to a satisfactory answer? [Cries of 
" Yes," ''Yes," and " No," " No."] ' There is some little 
difference of opinion here. But I ask attention to a few 
more views bearing on the question of whether it 
amounts to a satisfactory answer. The men who were 
determined that that amendment should not get into 
the bill, and spoil the place where the Dred Scott decis- 
ion was to come in, sought an excuse to get rid of it 
somewhere. One of these waj's — one of these excuses — 
was to ask Chase to add to his proposed amendment a 
provision that the people might introduce slavery if 
they wanted to. They very well knew Chase would do 



122 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

no such thing — that Mr. Chase was one of the men 
differing from them on the broad principle of his in- 
sisting that freedom was better than slavery — a man 
who would not consent to enact a law penned with his 
own hand, by which he was made to recognize slavery 
on the one hand and liberty on the other as precisely 
equal; and when they insisted on his doing this, they 
very well knew they insisted on that which he would 
not for a moment think of doing, and that they were 
only bluffing him. I believe — I have not, since he made 
his answer, had a chance to examine the journals or 
" Congressional Globe," and therefore speak from 
memory — I believe the state of the bill at that time, 
according to parliamentary rules, was such that no 
member could propose an additional amendment to 
Chase's amendment. I rather think this is the truth — 
the judge shakes his head. Very well. I would like to 
know then, if they wanted Chase's amendment fixed 
over, why somebody else could not have offered to do it? 
If they wanted it amended, why did they not offer the 
amendment? Why did they stand there taunting and 
quibbling at Chase? Why did they not put it in them- 
selves? But to put it on the other ground: suppose 
that there was such an amendment offered, and Chase's 
was an amendment to an amendment ; until one is dis- 
posed of by parliamentary law, you cannot pile another 
on. Then all these gentlemen had to do was to vote 
Chase's on, and then, in the amended form in which 
the whole stood, add their own amendment to it if they 
wanted to put it in that shape. This was all they were 
obliged to do, and the ayes and noes show that there 
were thirty-six who voted it down, against ten who 
voted in favor of it. The thirty-six held entire sway 
and control. They could in some form or other have 
put that bill in the exact shape they wanted. If there 
was a rule preventing their amending it at the time, 
they could pass that, and then, Chase's amendment 
being merged, put it in the shape they wanted. They 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^23 

did not choose to do so, but thej went into a quibble 
with Chase to get him to add what they knew he would 
not add, and because he would not, they stand upon 
that flimsy pretext for voting down what they argued 
was the meaning and intent of their own bill. They 
left room thereby for this Dred Scott decision, which 
goes very far to make slavery national throughout the 
United States. 

I pass one or two points I have because my time will 
very soon expire, but I must be allowed to say that 
Judge Douglas recurs again, as he did upon one or two 
other occasions, to the enormity of Lincoln — an insig- 
nificant individual like Lincoln — upon his ipse dixit 
charging a conspiracy upon a large number of members 
of Congress, the Supreme Court, and two Presidents, to 
nationalize slavery. I want to say that, in the first 
place, I have made no charge of this sort upon my ipse 
dixit. I have only arrayed the evidence tending to 
prove it, and presented it to the understanding of 
others, saying what I think it proves, but giving you 
the means of judging whether it proves it or not. 
This is precisely what I have done. I have not placed 
it upon my ipse dixit at all. On this occasion, I wish 
to recall his attention to a piece of evidence which I 
brought forward at Ottawa on Saturday, showing that 
he had made substantially the same charge against 
substantially the same persons, excluding his dear self 
from the category. I ask him to give some attention to 
the evidence which I brought forward, that he himself 
had discovered a " fatal blow being struck " against the 
right of the people to exclude slavery from their limits, 
which fatal blow he assumed as in evidence in an 
article in the Washington " Union," published '^ by 
authority." I ask by whose authority? He discovers 
a similar or identical provision in the Lecompton con- 
stitution. Made by whom? The framers of that con- 
stitution. Advocated by whom? By all the members 
of the party in the nation, who advocated the intro- 



124 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



duction of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton 
constitution. 

I have asljed his attention to the evidence that he 
arrajed to prove that such a fatal blow was being 
struck, and to the facts which he brought forward in 
support of that charge — being identical with the one 
which he thinks so villainous in me. He pointed it 
not at a newspaper editor merely, but at the President 
and his cabinet, and the members of Congress advocat- 
ing the Lecompton constitution, and those framing that 
instrument. I must again be permitted to remind him, 
that although my ipse dixit may not be as great as his, 
yet it somewhat reduces the force of his calling my at- 
tention to the enormity of my making a like charge 
against him. 

Mr. Lincoln's Rejoinder in the Freeport Joint Debate. 

My Friends: It will readily occur to you that I can- 
not in half an hour notice all the things that so able a 
man as Judge Douglas can say in an hour and a half ; 
and I hope, therefore, if there be anything that he has 
said upon which you would like to hear something 
from me, but which I omit to comment upon, you will 
bear in mind that it would be expecting an impossi- 
bility for me to go over his whole ground. I can but 
take up some of the points that he has dwelt upon, and 
employ my half hour specially on them. 

The first thing T have to say to you is a word in re- 
gard to Judge Douglas's declaration about the " vul- 
garity and blackguardism " in the audience — that no 
such thing, as he says, was shown by any Democrat 
while I was speaking. Now I only wish, by way of 
reply on this subject, to say that while I was speaking 
I used no "vulgarity or blackguardism" toward any 
Democrat. 

Now, my friends, I come to all this long portion of 
the judge's speech — perhaps half of it — which he has 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^25 

devoted to the various resolutions and platforms that 
have been adopted in the different counties, in the 
different congressional districts, and in the Illinois 
legislature — which he supposes are at variance with the 
positions 1 have assumed before you to-da}-. It is true 
that many of these resolutions are at variance with the 
positions I have here assumed. All I have to ask is 
that we talk reasonably and rationally about it. I 
happen to know, the judge's opinion to the contrary 
notwithstanding, that I have never tried to conceal my 
opinions, nor tried to deceive any one in reference to 
them. He may go and examine all the members who 
voted for me for United States senator in 1855, after 
the election of 1854. They were pledged to certain 
things here at home, and were determined to have 
pledges from me, and if he will find any of these per- 
sons who will tell him anything inconsistent with what 
I say now, I will retire from the race, and give him no 
more trouble. 

The plain truth is this. At the introduction of the 
Nebraska policy, we believed there was a new era being 
introduced in the history of the republic, which tended 
to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. But in our 
opposition to that measure we did not agree with one 
another in everything. The people in the north end of 
the State were for stronger measures of opposition than 
we of the central and southern portions of the State, 
but we were all opposed to the Nebraska doctrine. We 
had that one feeling and that one sentiment in com- 
mon. You at the north end met in your conventions 
and passed your resolutions. We in the middle of the 
State and further south did not hold such conventions 
and pass the same resolutions, although we had in 
general a common view and a common sentiment. 
So that these meetings which the judge has alluded to, 
and the resolutions he has read from, were local, and 
did not spread over the whole State. We at last met 
together in 1856, from all parts of the State, and we 



126 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



agreed upon a common platform. You who held more 
extreme notions, either yielded those notions, or if not 
wholly yielding them, agreed to yield them practically, 
for the sake of embodying the opposition to the meas- 
ures which the opposite party were pushing forward at 
that time. We met you then, and if there was anything 
yielded, it was for practical purposes. We agreed then 
upon a platform for the party throughout the entire 
State of Illinois, and now we are all bound, as a party, 
to that platform. And I say here to you, if any one 
expects of me, in the case of my election, that I will do 
anything not signified by our Eepublican platform and 
my answers here to-day, I tell you very frankly that 
person will be deceived. I do not ask for the vote of 
any one who supposes that I have secret purposes or 
pledges that I dare not speak out. Cannot the judge be 
satisfied? If he fears, in the unfortunate case of my 
election, that my going to Washington will enable me 
to advocate sentiments contrary to those which I ex- 
pressed when you voted for and elected me, I assure 
him that his fears are wholly needless and groundless. 
Is the judge really afraid of any such thing? I'll tell 
you what he is afraid of. He is afraid we'll all pull 
together. This is what alarms him more than anything 
else. For my part, I do hope that all of us, entertain- 
ing a common sentiment in opposition to what appears 
to us a design to nationalize and perpetuate slaverj', 
will waive minor differences on questions which either 
belong to the dead past or the distant future, and all 
pull together in this struggle. What are your senti- 
ments? If it be true that on the ground which I occupy 
— ground which I occupy as frankly and boldly as 
Judge Douglas does his — my views, though partly coin- 
ciding with yours, are not as perfectly in accordance 
with your feelings as his are, I do say to you in all can- 
dor, go for him and not for me. I hope to deal in all 
things fairly with Judge Douglas, and with the people 
of the State, in this contest. And if I should never 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 127 

be elected to any office, I trust I may go down with no 
stain of falseliood upon my reputation, notwithstand- 
ing the hard opinions Judge Douglas chooses to enter- 
tain of me. 

The judge has again addressed himself to the Aboli- 
tion tendencies of a speech of mine, made at Springfield 
in June last. I have so often tried to answer what he is 
alwaj^s saying on that melancholy theme, that I almost 
turn with disgust from the discussion — from the repeti- 
tion of an answer to it. I trust that nearly all of this 
intelligent audience have read that speech. If you have, 
I may venture to leave it to you to inspect it closely, 
and see whether it contains any of those " bugaboos " 
which frighten Judge Douglas. 

The judge complains that I did not fully answer his 
questions. If I have the sense to comprehend and 
answer those questions, I have done so fairly. If it 
can be pointed out to me how I can more fully and 
fairly answer him, I will do it — but I aver I have not 
the sense to see how it is to be done. He says I do not 
declare I would in any event vote for the admission of 
a slave State into the Union. If I have been fairly re- 
ported, he will see that I did give an explicit answer to 
his interrogatories. I did not merely say that I would 
dislike to be put to the test ; but I said clearly, if I were 
put to the test, and a Territory from which slavery had 
been excluded should present herself with a State con- 
stitution sanctioning slavery, — a most extraordinary 
thing and wholly unlikely to happen, — I did not see 
how I could avoid voting for her admission. But he re- 
fuses to understand that I said so, and he wants this 
audience to understand that I did not say so. Yet it 
will be so reported in the printed speech that he cannot 
help seeing it. 

He says if I should vote for the admission of a slave 
State I would be voting for a dissolution of the Union, 
because I hold that the Union cannot permanently 
exist half slave and half free. I repeat that I do not 



-|!28 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

believe this government can endure permanently half 
slave and half free, jet I do not admit, nor does it at 
all follow, that the admission of a single slave State 
will permanently fix the character and establish this 
as a universal slave nation. The judge is very happy 
indeed at working up these quibbles. Before leaving the 
subject of answering questions, I aver as my confident 
belief, when you come to see our speeches in print, that 
you will find every question which he has asked me more 
fairly and boldly and fully answered than he has an- 
swered those which I put to him. Is not that so? The 
two speeches may be placed side by side; and I will ven- 
ture to leave it to impartial judges whether his ques- 
tions have not been more directly and circumstantially 
answered than mine. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LI^XOLN. ^29 



REPLY TO DOUGLAS IN THE JONESBORO JOINT 
DEBATE, SEP. 15, 1858. 

[In the following speech, Mr. Lincoln reaffirms his own attitude 
on the great controversy of the era and puts on record, in answer 
to Judge Douglas's question, his reasons for stating that ' the 
Union cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free.' He 
also asserts what is and what is not the Republican platform, 
with its principles and purposes, and enlightens his hearers, if not 
his redoubtable adversary, on other aspects of the creed pro- 
fessed by him and the Republican party with reference to the 
great issue then under discussion. At the same time, he also 
propounds other questions to his formidable antagonist and 
seeks for answers to them]. 

3Ir. Lincohis Reply in the Joncsboro Joint Debate. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: There is very much in the 
principles that Judge Douglas has here enunciated that 
I most cordially approve, and over which I shall have 
no controversy with him. In so far as he has insisted 
that all the States have the right to do exactly as they 
please about all their domestic relations, including that 
of slavery, I agree entirely with him. He places me 
wrong in spite of all I can tell him, though I repeat 
it again and again, insisting that I have made no dif- 
ference with him upon this subject. I have made a 
great many speeches, some of which have been printed, 
and it will be utterly impossible for him to find any- 
thing that I have ever put in print contrary to what I 
now say upon this subject. I hold myself under con- 
stitutional obligations to allow the people in all the 
States, without interference, direct or indirect, to do 
exactly as they please, and I deny that I have any in- 
clination to interfere with them, even if there were no 
such constitutional obligation. I can only say again 
that I am placed improperly — altogether improperly, 
9 



;[30 SPEECHES OF ABRAHMl LINCOLN. 

in spite of all I can say — when it is insisted that I 
entertain any other view or purpose in regard to that 
matter. 

While I am upon this subject, I will make some 
answers briefly to certain propositions that Judge 
Douglas has put. He says, " Why can't this Union 
endure permanently, half slave and half free?" I 
have said that I supposed it could not, and I will try, 
before this new audience, to give briefly some of the 
reasons for entertaining that, opinion. Another form 
of his question is, " Why can't we let it stand as our 
fathers placed it?" That is the exact difficulty be- 
tween us. I say that Judge Douglas and his friends 
have changed it from the position in which our fathers 
originally placed it. I say, in the way our fathers 
originally left the slavery question, the institution was 
in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public 
mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of 
ultimate extinction. I sa^' when this government was 
first established, it was the policy of its founders to 
prohibit the spread of slavery into the new Territories 
of the United States, where it had not existed. But 
Judge Douglas and his friends have broken up that 
policy, and placed it upon a new basis by which it is to 
become national and perpetual. All I have asked or 
desired anywhere is that it should be placed back again 
upon the basis that the fathers of our government 
originally placed it upon. I have no doubt that it 
would become extinct, for all time to come, if we but 
readopted the policy of the fathers by restricting it to 
the limits it has already covered — restricting it from 
the new Territories. 

I do not wish to dwell at great length on this branch 
of the subject at this time, but allow me to repeat one 
thing that I have stated before. Brooks, the man who 
assaulted Senator Sumner on the floor of the Senate, 
and who was complimented with dinners, and silver 
pitchers, and gold-headed canes, and a good many other 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. l^-^ 

things for that feat, in one of his speeches decLared that 
when this government was originally established, no- 
body expected that the institution of slavery w^ould 
last until this day. That was but the opinion of one 
man, but it was such an opinion as we can never get 
from Judge Douglas, or anybody in favor of slavery 
in the North at all. You can sometimes get it from a 
Southern man. He said at the same time that the 
framers of our government did not have the knowl- 
edge that experience has taught us — that experience 
and the invention of the cotton-gin have taught us that 
the perpetuation of slavery is a necessity. He insisted, 
therefore, upon its being changed from the basis upon 
which the fathers of the government left it to the basis 
of its perpetuation and nationalization. 

I insist that this is the difference between Judge 
Douglas and myself — that Judge Douglas is helping 
that change along. I insist upon this government being 
jdaced where our fathers originally placed it. 

I remember Judge Douglas once said that he saw the 
evidences on the statute-books of Congress of a policy 
in the origin of government to divide slavery and free- 
dom by a geographical line — that he saw an indisposi- 
tion to maintain that policy, and therefore he set about 
studying up a way to settle the institution on the right 
basis — the basis which he thought it ought to have 
been placed upon at first; and in that speech he con- 
fesses that he seeks to place it, not upon the basis that 
the fathers placed it upon, but upon one gotten up on 
"■ original principles." When he asks me why we can- 
not get along with it in the attitude where our fathers 
]'laced it, he had better cl-ear up the evidences that he 
has himself changed it from that basis; that he has 
himself been chiefly instrumental in changing the policy 
of the fathers. Any one who will read his speech of 
the 22d of last March will see that he there makes an 
open confession, showing that he set about fixing the 
institution upon an altogether different set of princi- 



132 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

pies. I think I have fully answered him when he asks 
me why we cannot let it alone upon the basis where our 
fathers left it, by showing that he has himself changed 
the whole policy of the government in that regard. 

Now, fellow-citizens, in regard to this matter about 
a contract that was made between Judge Trumbull and 
myself, and all that long portion of Judge Douglas's 
speech on this subject, I wish simply to say what I 
have said to him before, that he cannot know whether 
it is true or not, and I do know that there is not a word 
of truth in it. And I have told him so before. I don't 
want any harsh language indulged in, but I do not 
know how to deal with this persistent insisting on a 
story that I know to be utterly without truth. It used 
to be a fashion amongst men that when a charge was 
made, some sort of proof was brought forward to es- 
tablish it, and if no proof was found to exist, the charge 
was droj)ped. I don't know how to meet this kind of an 
argument. I don't want to have a fight with Judge 
Douglas, and I have no way of making an argument up 
into the consistency of a corn-cob and stopping his 
mouth with it. All I can do is, good-humoredly, to 
say that from the beginning to the end of all that story 
about a bargain between Judge Trumbull and myself, 
there is not a word of truth in it. I can only ask him 
to show some sort of evidence of the truth of his story. 
He brings forward here and reads from what he con- 
tends is a speech by James H. Matheny, charging such 
a bargain between Trumbull and myself. My own 
opinion is that Matheny did do some such immoral 
thing as to tell a story that he knew nothing about. I 
believe he did. I contradicted it instantly, and it has 
been contradicted by Judge Trumbull, w^hile nobody 
has produced any proof, because there is none. Now, 
whether the speech which the judge brings forward here 
is really the one IMatheny made, I do not know, and I 
hope the judge will pardon me for doubting the genu- 
ineness of this document, since his production of those 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^33 

Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. I do not wish to 
dwell at any great length upon this matter. I can say 
nothing when a long story like this is told, except that 
it is not true, and demand that he who insists upon it 
shall produce some proof. That is all any man can do, 
and I leave it in that way, for I know of no other way 
of dealing with it. 

The judge has gone over a long account of the Old 
Whig and Democratic parties, and it connects itself 
with this charge against Trumbull and myself. He says 
that they agreed upon a compromise in regard to the 
slaver}' question in 1850; that in a national Demo- 
cratic convention resolutions were passed to abide by 
that compromise as a finality ujjon the slavery question. 
He also says that tlie Whig party in national conven- 
tion agreed to abide by and regard as a finality the com- 
promise of LS50. I understand the judge to be alto- 
gether right about that; I understand that part of the 
history of the country as stated by him to be correct. 
T recollect that I, as a member of that party, acquiesced 
in that compromise. I recollect in the presidential elec- 
tion which followed, when we had General Scott up for 
the presidency, Judge Douglas was around berating us 
Whigs as Abolitionists, precisely as he does to-day — 
not a bit of difference. I have often heard him. We 
could do nothing when the Old Whig party was alive 
that was not Abolitionism, but it has got an extremely 
good name since it has passed away. 

When that compromise was made, it did not repeal 
the old Missouri Compromise. It left a region of 
United States territory half as large as the present 
territory of the United States, north of the line of 
06° 30', in which slavery was prohibited by act of Con- 
gress. This compromise did not repeal that one. It 
did not affect or proi)ose to repeal it. But at last it 
became Judge Douglas's duty, as he thought (and I 
find no fault with him), as chairman of the Committee 
on Territories, to bring in a bill for the organization of 



134 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLK". 



a territorial government — first of one, then of two 
Territories north of that line. When he did so it 
ended in his inserting a provision substantially repeal- 
ing the Missouri Compromise. That was because the 
compromise of 1S50 had not repealed it. And now I 
ask why he could not have left that compromise alone? 
We were quiet from the agitation of the slavery ques- 
tion. We were making no fuss about it. All had 
acquiesced in the compromise measures of 1850. We 
never had been seriously disturbed by any Abolition 
agitation before that period. When he came to form 
governments for the Territories north of the line of 
36° 30', why could he not have let that matter stand as 
it was standing? Was it necessary to the organization 
of a Territory? Not at all. Iowa lay north of the 
line and had been organized as a Territory, and came 
into the Union as a State without disturbing that com- 
promise. There was no sort of necessity for destroying 
it to organize these Territories. But, gentlemen, it 
would take up all my time to meet all the little quib- 
bling arguments of Judge Douglas to show that the 
Missouri Compromise was repealed by the compromise 
of 1850. My own opinion is that a careful investiga- 
tion of all the arguments to sustain the position that 
that compromise was virtually repealed by the comprtii- 
mise of 1850 would show that they are the merest 
fallacies. I have the report that Judge Douglas first 
brought into Congress at the time of the introduction 
of the Nebraska bill, which in its original form did not 
repeal the Missouri Compromise, and he there expressly 
stated that he had forborne to do so because it had not 
been done by the compromise of 1850. I close this part 
of the discussion on my part by asking him the question 
again, " Why, when we had peace under the Missouri 
Compromise, could you not have let it alone? " 

In complaining of what I said in my speech at 
Springfield, in which he says I accepted my nomination 
for the senatorship (where, by the way, he is at fault. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAAl LINCOLN. 135 

for if be will examine it, he will find no acceptance in 
it), he again quotes that portion in which I said that 
*' a house divided against itself cannot stand." Let me 
saj a word in regard to that matter. 

He tries to persuade us that there must be a variety 
in the different institutions of the States of the 
Union ; that that variety uecessaril}- proceeds from the 
variety of soil, climate, of the face of the country, and 
the difference in the natural features of the States. I 
agree to all that. Have these very matters ever pro- 
duced any difficult}" amongst us? Not at all. Have we 
ever had an}- quarrel over the fact that they have laws 
in Louisiana designed to regulate the commerce that 
springs from the production of sugar? or because we 
have a different class relative to the production of flour 
in this State? Have they produced any differences? 
Not at all. They are the very cements of this L^nion. 
They don't make the house a house divided against it- 
self. They are the props that hold up the house and 
sustain the Union. 

But has it been so with this element of slavery? 
Have we not alwaj^s had quarrels and difficulties over 
it? And when will we cease to have quarrels over it? 
Like causes produce like effects. It is worth while to 
observe that we have generally had comparative peace 
upon the slavery question, and that there has been 
no cause for alarm until it was excited by the effort to 
spread it into new territory. Whenever it has been 
limited to its present bounds, and there has been no 
effort to spread it, there has been peace. All the trouble 
and convulsion has proceeded from efforts to spread it 
over more territory. It was thus at the date of the 
Missouri Compromise. It w^as so again with the an- 
nexation of Texas; so with the territory acquired by 
the Mexican war; and it is so now. Whenever there 
has been an effort to spread it there has been agitation 
and resistance. Now, I appeal to this audience (very 
few of whom are my political friends), as national 



15^ SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

men, whether we have reason to expect that the agita- 
tion in regard to this subject will cease while the causes 
that tend to reproduce agitation are actively at work? 
Will not the same cause that produced agitation in 
1820, when the Missouri Compromise was formed, — 
that which produced the agitation upon the annexa- 
tion of Texas, and at other times, — work out the same 
results always? Do you think that the nature of man 
will be changed — that the same causes that produced 
agitation at one time will not have the same effect at 
another? 

This has been the result so far as my observation of 
the slavery question and my reading in history extend. 
What right have we then to hope that the trouble will 
cease, that the agitation will come to an end; until it 
shall either be placed back where it originally stood, 
and where the fathers originally placed it, or, on the 
other hand, until it shall entirely master all opposi- 
tion? This is the view I entertain, and this is the 
reason why I entertained it, as Judge Douglas has read 
from my Springfield speech. 

Now, my friends, there is one other thing that I feel 
under some sort of obligation to mention. Judge 
Douglas has here to-day — in a very rambling way, I 
was about saying — spoken of the platforms for which 
he seeks to hold me responsible. He says, " Why can't 
you come out and make an open avowal of principles 
in all places alike?" and he reads from an advertise- 
ment that he says was used to notify the people of a 
speech to be made by Judge Trumbull at Waterloo. 
In commenting on it he desires to know whether we 
cannot speak frankly and manfully as he and his friends 
do! How, I ask, do his friends speak out their own 
sentiments? A convention of his party in this State 
met on the 21st of April, at Springfield, and passed a 
set of resolutions which they proclaim to the country 
as their platform. This does constitute their platform, 
and it is because Judge Douglas claims it is his plat- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 137 

form — that these are his principles and purposes — that 
he has a right to declare that he speaks his sentiments 
"frankly and manfully." On the 9th of June, Colonel 
John Dougherty, Governor Reynolds, and others, call- 
ing themselves National Democrats, met in Springfield, 
and adopted a set of resolutions which are as easily 
understood, as plain and as definite in stating to the 
country and to the world what they believed in and 
would stand upon, as Judge Douglas's platform. Now, 
what is the reason that Judge Douglas is not willing 
that Colonel Dougherty and Governor Reynolds should 
stand upon their own written and printed platform as 
well as he upon his? Why must he look farther than 
their platform when he claims himself to stand by hia 
platform ? 

Again, in reference to our platform : On the 16th of 
June the Republicans had their convention and pub- 
lished their platform, which is as clear and distinct as 
Judge Douglas's. In it they spoke their principles as 
plainly and as definitely to the world. What is the 
reason that Judge Douglas is not willing that I should 
stand upon that platform? Why must he go around 
hunting for some one who is supporting me, or has sup- 
ported me at some time in his life, and who has said 
something at some time contrary to that platform? 
Does the judge regard that rule as a good one? If it 
turn out that the rule is a good one for me, — that I am 
responsible for any and every opinion that any man has 
expressed who is my friend, — then it is a good rule for 
him. I ask, is it not as good a rule for him as it is 
for me? In my opinion, it is not a good rule for either 
of us. Do you think differently, judge? 

Mr. Douglas: I do not. 

Mr. Lincoln : Judge Douglas says he does not think 
differently. I am glad of it. Then can he tell me why 
he is looking up resolutions of five or six years ago, and 
insisting that they were my platform, notwithstanding 
my protest that they are not, and never were, my plat- 



138 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

form, and my pointing out the platform of the State 
convention which he delights to say nominated me for 
the Senate? I cannot see what he means by parading 
these resolutions, if it is not to hold me responsible for 
them in some way. If he says to me here, that he does 
not hold the rule to be good, one way or the other, I 
do not comprehend how he could answer me more fully 
if he answered me at greater length. I will therefore 
put in as my answer to the resolutions that he has 
hunted up against me what I, as a lawyer, would call 
a good plea to a bad declaration. I understand that it 
is a maxim of law, that a poor plea may be a good plea 
to a bad declaration. 1 think that the opinions the 
judge brings from those who support me, yet differ 
from me, are a bad declaration against me. But if I can 
bring the same things against him, I am putting in a 
good plea to that kind of declaration, and now I pro- 
pose to try it. 

At Freeport Judge Douglas occupied a large part of 
his time in producing resolutions and documents of 
various sorts, as I understood, to make me somehow 
responsible for them ; and I propose now doing a little 
of the same sort of thing for him. In 1850 a very clever 
gentleman by the name of Thompson Campbell, a per- 
sonal friend of Judge Douglas and myself, a political 
friend of Judge Douglas and opponent of mine, was a 
candidate for Congress in the Galena district. He was 
interrogated as to his views on this same slavery ques- 
tion. I have here before me the interrogatories, and 
Campbell's answers to them. I will read them : 

Interrogatories. 

1. Will you, if elected, vote for and cordially support a bill 
prohibiting slavery in the Territories of the United States? 

2. Will you vote for and support a bill abolishing slavery In 
the District of Columbia? 

3. Will you oppose the admission of any slave States which 
may be formed out of Texas or the Territories? 

4. Will you vote for and advocate the repeal of the fugitive- 
slave law passed at the recent session of Congress? 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". ^39 

5. Will you advocate and vote for the election of a Speaker 
of the House of Representatives who shall be willing to organize 
the committees of that House so as to give the free States their 
just influence in the business of legislation? 

6. What are your views, not only as to the constitutional 
right of Congress to prohibit the slave-trade between the States, 
but also as to the expediency of exercising that right immedi- 
ately? 

Campbell's Reply. 

To the first and second interrogatories, I answer unequivocally 
in the affirmative. 

To the third interrogatory, I reply that I am opposed to the 
admission of any more slave States into the Union, that may be 
formed out of Texan or any other territory. 

To the fourth and fifth interrogatories, I unhesitatingly answer 
in the affirmative. 

To the sixth interrogatory, I reply that so long as the slave 
States continue to treat slaves as articles of commerce, the 
Constitution confers power on Congress to pass laws regulating 
that peculiar commerce, and that the protection of human 
rights imperatively demands the interposition of every con- 
stitutional means to prevent this most inhuman and iniquitous 
traffic. 

T. Campbell. 

I want to say here that Thompson Campbell was 
elected to Congress on that platform, as the Democratic 
candidate in the Galena district, against Martin P. 
Sweet. 

Judge Douglas : Give me the date of the letter. 

Mr. Lincoln : The time Campbell ran was in 1850. 
I have not the exact date here. It was some time in 
1850 that these interrogatories were put and the 
answer given. Campbell was elected to Congress, and 
served out his term. I think a second election came up 
before he served out his term, and he was not reelected. 
Whether defeated or not nominated, I do not know. 
[Mr. Campbell was nominated for reelection by the 
Democratic party, by acclamation.] At the end of his 
term his very good friend. Judge Douglas, got him a 
high office from President Pierce, and sent him off to 
California. Is not that the fact? Just at the end of 
his term in Congress it appears that our mutual friend 



240 SPEECHES OF ABKAHAJI LINCOLN. 

Judge Douglas got our mutual friend Campbell a good 
office, and sent him to California upon it. And not only 
so, but on the 27th of last month, when Judge Douglas 
and myself spoke at Freeport in joint discussion, there 
was his same friend Campbell, come all the way from 
California, to help the judge beat me; and there was 
poor Martin P. Sweet standing on the platform, try- 
ing to help poor me to be elected. That is true of one of 
Judge Douglas's friends. 

At Freeport I answered several interrogatories that 
had been propounded to me by Judge Douglas at the 
Ottawa meeting. The judge has jet not seen fit to 
find any fault with the position that I took in regard 
to those seven interrogatories, which were certainly 
broad enough, in all conscience, to cover the entire 
ground. In my answers, which have been printed, and 
all have had the opportunity of seeing, I take the 
ground that those who elect me must expect that I will 
do nothing which will not be in accordance with those 
answers. I have some right to assert that Judge Doug- 
las has no fault to find with them. But he chooses to 
still try to thrust me upon different ground without 
paying any attention to my answers, the obtaining of 
which from me cost him so much trouble and con- 
cern. At the same time, I propounded four interroga- 
tories to him, claiming it as a right that he should 
answer as many interrogatories for me as I did for him, 
and I would reserve myself for a future instalment 
when I got them ready. The judge, in answering me 
upon that occasion, put in what I suppose he intends 
as answers to all four of my interrogatories. The first 
one of these interrogatories I have before me, and it is 
in these words : 

Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely 
unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State constitution, 
and ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the 
requisite number of inhabitants according to the English bill, — 
some ninety-three thousand,— will you vote to admit them? 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAIkl LINCOLN. ^4^^ 

As I read the judge's answer in the newspaper, and 
as I remember it as pronounced at the time, he does 
not give any answer which is equivalent to jes or no — • 
I will or I won't. He answers at very considerable 
length, rather quarreling with me for asking the ques- 
tion, and insisting that Judge Trumbull had done some- 
thing that I ought to say something about; and finally 
getting out such statements as induce me to infer that 
he means to be understood he will, in that supposed 
case, vote for the admission of Kansas. I only bring 
this forward now for the purpose of saying that, if 
he chooses to put a ditferent construction upon his 
answer, he may do it. But if he does not, I shall from 
this time forward assume that he will vote for the 
admission of Kansas in disregard of the English bill. 
He has the right to remove any misunderstanding I 
may have. I only mention it now that I may hereafter 
assume this to be the true construction of his answer, if 
he does not now choose to correct me. 

The second interrogatory that I projjounded to him 
was this: 

Question 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in 
any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United 
States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation 
of a State constitution? 

To this Judge Douglas answered that they can law- 
fully exclude slavery from the Territory prior to the 
formation of a constitution. He goes on to tell us 
how it can be done. As I understand him, he holds that 
it can be done by the territorial legislature refusing to 
make any enactments for the protection of slavery in 
the Territory, and especially by adopting unfriendly 
legislation to it. For the sake of clearness, I state it 
again : that they can exclude slavery from the Terri- 
tory — first, by withholding what he assumes to be an 
indispensable assistance to it in the way of legislation; 
and, second, by unfriendly legislation. If I rightly uix- 



142 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LUSTCOLN. 



derstand him, I wish to ask your attention for a while 
to his position. 

In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United 
States has decided that any congressional prohibition 
of slavery in the Territories is unconstitutional — they 
have reached this proposition as a conclusion from their 
former proposition, that the Constitution of the United 
States expressly recognizes property in slaves; and 
from that other constitutional provision, that no per- 
son shall be deprived of property without due process 
of law. Hence they reach the conclusion that as the 
Constitution of the United States expressly recognizes 
property in slaves, and prohibits any person from being 
deprived of property without due process of law, to 
pass an act of Congress by which a man who owned a 
slave on one side of a line would be deprived of him if 
he took him on the other side is depriving him of that 
property without due process of law. That I under- 
stand to be the decision of the Supreme Court. I un- 
derstand also that Judge Douglas adheres most firmly 
to that decision ; and the difficulty is, how is it possible 
for any power to exclude slavery from the Territory 
unless in violation of that decision? That is the diflS- 
culty. 

In the Senate of the United States, in 1856, Judge 
Trumbull, in a speech, substantially, if not directly, 
put the same interrogatory to Judge Douglas, as to 
whether the people of a Territory had the lawful power 
to exclude slavery prior to the formation of a consti- 
tution? Judge Douglas then answered at considerable 
length, and his answer will be found in the " Con- 
gressional Globe," under the date of June 9, 1856. The 
judge said that whether the people could exclude 
slavery prior to the formation of a constitution or not 
was a question to be decided by the Supreme Court. He 
put that proposition, as will be seen by the " Congres- 
sional Globe," in a variety of forms, all running to the 
same thing in substance — that it was a question for the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLK ^[43 

Supreme Court. I maintain that when he says, after 
the Supreme Court has decided the question, that the 
people may yet exclude slavery by any means whatever, 
he does virtuall}' say that it is not a question for the 
Supreme Court. He shifts his ground. I appeal to you 
whether he did not say it was a question for the Su- 
preme Court? Has not the Supreme Court decided 
that question? When he now says that the people 
may exclude slavery, does he not make it a question 
for the people? Does he not virtually shift his ground 
and say that it is not a question for the court, but for 
the people? This is a very simple proposition — a very 
plain and naked one. It seems to me that there is no 
difficulty in deciding it. In a variety of ways he said 
that it was a question for the Supreme Court. He did 
not stop then to tell us that, whatever the Supreme 
Court decides, the people can by withholding necessary 
" police regulations " keep slavery out. He did not 
make any such answer. I submit to you now, whether 
the new state of the case has not induced the judge to 
sheer away from his original ground. Would not this 
be the impression of every fair-minded man? 

I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter 
a new country without police regulations is historically 
false. It is not true at all. I hold that the history of 
this country shows that the institution of slavery 
was originally planted upon this continent without 
these " police regulations " which the judge now thinks 
necessary for the actual establishment of it. Not only 
so, but is there not another fact — how came this Dred 
Scott decision to be made? It was made upon the case 
of a negro being taken and actually held in slavery in 
Minnesota Territory, claiming his freedom because the 
act of Congress prohibited his being so held there. Will 
the judge pretend that Dred Scott was not held there 
without police regulations? There is at least one mat- 
ter of record as to his having been held in slavery in 
the Territory, not only without police regulations, but 



244 SPEECHES OF ABRAHA^I LINCOLN. 

in the teeth of congressional legislation supposed to be 
valid at the time. This shows that there is vigor 
enough in slavery to plant itself in a new country even 
against unfriendly legislation. It takes not only law 
but the enforcement of law to keep it out. That is the 
history of this country upon the subject. 

I wish to ask one other question. It being under- 
stood that the Constitution of the United States guar- 
antees property in slaves in the Territories, if there is 
any infringement of the right of that property, would 
not the United States courts, organized for the govern- 
ment of the Territory, apply such remedy as might be 
necessary in that case? It is a maxim held by the 
courts, that there is no wrong without its remedy ; and 
the courts have a remedy for whatever is acknowledged 
and treated as a wrong. 

Again : I will ask you, my friends, if you were elected 
members of the legislature, what would be the first 
thing you would have to do before entering upon your 
duties? Swear to support the Constitution of the 
United States. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas 
does, that the Constitution of the United States guaran- 
tees to your neighbor the right to hold slaves in that 
Territory, — that they are his property, — how can you 
clear your oaths unless you give him such legislation 
as is necessary to enable him to enjoy that property? 
What do you understand by supporting the Constitu- 
tion of a State, or of the United States? Is it not to 
give such constitutional helps to the rights established 
by that Constitution as may be practically needed? 
Can you, if you swear to support the Constitution, and 
believe that the Constitution establishes a right, clear 
your oath, without giving it support? Do you support 
the Constitution if, knowing or believing there is a 
right established under it which needs specific legisla- 
tion, you withhold that legislation? Do you not vio- 
late and disregard your oath? I can conceive of noth- 
ing plainer in the world. There can be nothing in the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 145 

words " support the Constitution," if you may run 
counter to it by refusing support to any right estab- 
lished under the Constitution. And what I say here 
will hold with still more force against the judge's doc- 
trine of " unfriendly legislation." How could you, hav- 
ing sworn to support the Constitution, and believing 
that it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the Ter- 
ritories, assist in legislation intended to defeat that 
right? That would be violating your own view of the 
Constitution. Not only so, but if you were to do so, 
how long would it take the courts to hold your votes un- 
constitutional and void? Not a moment. 

Lastly I would ask — Is not Congress itself under 
obligation to give legislative support to any right that 
is established under the United States Constitution? 
I repeat the question — Is not Congress itself bound to 
give legislative support to any right that is established 
in the United vStates Constitution? A member of Con- 
gress swears to support the Constitution of the United 
States, and if he sees a right established by that Con- 
stitution which needs specific legislative protection, 
can he clear his oath without giving that protection? 
Let me ask you why many of us who are opposed to 
slavery upon ])rinciple give our acquiescence to a fugi- 
tive-slave law? Why do we hold ourselves under ob- 
ligations to pass such a law, and abide by it when it is 
passed? Because the Constitution makes provision 
that the owners of slaves shall have the right to reclaim 
them. It gives the right to reclaim slaves, and that 
right is, as Judge Douglas says, a barren right, unless 
there is legislation that will enforce it. 

The mere declaration, " No person held to service or 
labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping in- 
to another, shall in consequence of any law or regula- 
tion therein be discharged from such service or labor, 
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom 
such service or labor may be due," is powerless without 
specific legislation to enforce it. Now, on what ground 
10 



146 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOL?^. 



would a member of Congress who is opposed to slavery 
in the abstract vote for a fugitive law, as I would 
deem it my duty to do? Because there is a constitu- 
tional right which needs legislation to enforce it. And 
although it is distasteful to me, I have sworn to support 
the Constitution, and having so sworn, I cannot con- 
ceive that I do support it if I withhold from that right 
any necessary legislation to make it practical. And if 
that is true in regard to a fugitive-slave law, is the right 
to have fugitive slaves reclaimed any better fixed in 
the Constitution than the right to hold slaves in the 
Territories? For this decision is a just exposition of 
the Constitution, as Judge Douglas thinks. Is the one 
right any better than the other? Is there any man who, 
while a member of Congress, would give support to the 
one any more than the other? If I wished to refuse to 
give legislative support to slave property in the Terri- 
tories, if a member of Congress, I could not do it, 
holding the view that the Constitution establishes that 
right. If I did it at all, it would be because I deny 
that this decision properly construes the Constitution. 
But if I acknowledge, with Judge Douglas, that this 
decision properly construes the Constitution, I can- 
not conceive that I would be less than a perjured man if 
I should refuse in Congress to give such protection to 
that property as in its nature it needed. 

At the end of what I have said here I propose to 
give the judge my fifth interrogatory, which he may 
take and answer at his leisure. My fifth interrogatory 
is this : 

If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Terri- 
tory^ should need and demand congressional legislation 
for the protection of their slave property in such Terri- 
tory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for or 
against such legislation? 

Judge Douglas: Will you repeat that? I want to 
answer that question. 

Mr, Lincoln : If the slaveholding citizens of a United 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 147 

States Territory should need and demand congressional 
legislation for the protection of their slave property 
in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress^ 
vote for or against such legislation? 

I am aware that in some of the speeches Judge 
Douglas has made, he has spoken as if he did not know 
or think that the Supreme Court had decided that a ter- 
ritorial legislature cannot exclude slavery. Precisely 
what the judge would say upon the subject — whether 
he would say definitely that he does not understand 
they have so decided, or whether he would say he 
does understand that the court have so decided, I do 
not know ; but I know that in his speech at Springfield 
he spoke of it as a thing they had not decided yet; 
and in his answer to me at Freeport, he spoke of it 
again, so far as I can comprehend it, as a thing that 
had not yet been decided. Now I hold that if the judge 
does entertain that view, I think that he is not mis- 
taken in so far as it can be said that the court has not 
decided anything save the mere question of jurisdic- 
tion. I know the legal arguments that can be made — 
that after a court has decided that it cannot take 
jurisdiction in a case, it then has decided all that is be- 
fore it, and that is the end of it. A plausible argu- 
ment can be made in favor of that proposition, but I 
know that Judge Douglas has said in one of his 
speeches that the court went forward, like honest men 
as they were, and decided all the points in the case. If 
any points are really extra-judicially decided because 
not necessarily before them, then this one as to the 
power of the territorial legislature to exclude slavery 
is one of them, as also the one that the Missouri Com- 
promise was null and void. They are both extra- 
judicial, or neither is, according as the court held that 
they had no jurisdiction in the case between the parties, 
because of want of capacity of one party to maintain a 
suit in that court. I want, if I have sufficient time, to 
show that the court did pass its opinion, but that is the 



5^48 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. • 

only thing actually done in the case. If they did not 
decide, they showed what they were ready to decide 
whenever the matter was before them. What is that 
opinion? After having argued that Congress had no 
power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United 
States Territory, they then used language to this effect: 
That inasmuch as Congress itself could not exercise 
such a power, it followed as a matter of course that it 
could not authorize a territorial government to exercise 
it, for the territorial legislature can do no more than 
Congress could do. Thus it expressed its opinion em- 
phatically against the power of a territorial legislature 
•to exclude slavery, leaving us in just as little doubt on 
that point as upon any other point they really decided. 
Now, fellow-citizens, my time is nearly out. I find 
a report of a speech made by Judge Douglas at Joliet, 
since we last met at Freeport, — published, I believe, in 
the Missouri " Republican," — on the 9th of this month, 
in which Judge Douglas says : 

You know at Ottawa I read this platform, and asked him if he 
concurred in each and all of the principles set forth in it. He 
would not answer these questions At last I said frankly, " I 
wish you to answer them, because when I get them up here where 
the color of your principles is a little darker than in Egypt, I 
intend to trot you down to Jonesboro." The very notice that 
I was going to take him down to Egypt made him tremble in 
the knees so that he had to be carried from the platform. He 
laid up seven days, and in the meantime held a consultation 
with his political physicians; they had Lovejoy and Farnsworth 
and all the leaders of the Abolition party. They consulted it 
all over, and at last Lincoln came to the conclusion that he 
would answer; so he came to Freeport last Friday. 

Now that statement altogether furnishes a subject 
for philosophical contemplation. I have been treating 
it in that way, and I have really come to the conclus- 
ion that I can explain it in no other way than by be- 
lieving the judge is crazy. If he was in his right mind, 
I cannot conceive how he would have risked disgust- 
ing the four or five thousand of his own friends who 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". I49 

stood there and knew, as to my having been carried 
from the platform, that there was not a word of truth 
in it. 

Judge Douglas: Did n't they carry you off? 

Mr. Lincoln : There ; that question illustrates the 
character of this man Douglas, exactly. He smiles now 
and says, *' Did n't they carry you off?" But he said 
then, ''He had to be carried off;" and he said it to 
convince the country that he had so completely broken 
me down by his speech that I had to be carried away. 
Now he seeks to dodge it, and asks, " Did n't they carry 
you off?" Yes, they did. But, Judge Douglas, why 
did n't you tell the truth? I would like to know why 
you did n't tell the truth about it. And then again, 
" He laid up seven days." He puts this in print for the 
people of the country to read as a serious document. I 
think if he had been in his sober senses he would not 
have risked that barefacedness in the presence of thou- 
sands of his own friends, who knew that I made 
speeches within six of the seven days at Henry, Mar- 
shall County; Augusta, Hancock County; and Ma- 
comb, McDonough County, including all the necessary 
travel to meet him again at Freeport at the end of the 
six days. Now, I say, there is no charitable way to 
look at that statement, except to conclude that he is 
actually crazy. There is another thing in that state- 
ment that alarmed me very greatly as he states it — 
that he was going to " trot me down to Egypt." There- 
by he would have you to infer that I would not come to 
Egypt unless he forced me — that I could not be got 
here, unless he, giant-like, had hauled me down here. 
That statement he makes, too, in the teeth of the knowl- 
edge that I made the stipulation to come down here, 
and that he himself had been very reluctant to enter 
into the stipulation. More than all this. Judge Doug- 
las, when he made that statement, must have been 
crazy, and wholly out of his sober senses, or else he 
would have known that, when he got me down here, 



;j^50 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

that promise — that windy promise — of his powers to 
annihilate me would n't amount to anything. Now, 
how little do I look like being carried away trembling? 
Let the judge go on, and after he is done with his half 
hour, I want you all, if I can't go home myself, to let me 
stay and rot here; and if anything happens to the 
judge, if I cannot carry him to the hotel and put him 
to bed, let me stay here and rot. I say, then, there is 
something extraordinary in this statement. I ask you 
if you know any other living man who would make 
such a statement? I will ask my friend Casey, over 
there, if he would do such a thing? Would he send 
that out and have his men take it as the truth? Did 
the judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt to scare 
me to death? Why, I know this people better than he 
does. I was raised just a little east of here. I am a 
part of this people. But the judge was raised further 
north, and perhaps he has some horrid idea of what 
this people might be induced to do. But really I have 
talked about this matter perhaps longer than I ought, 
for it is no great thing, and yet the smallest are often 
the most difficult things to deal with. The judge has 
set about seriously trying to make the impression that 
when we meet at different places I am literally in his 
clutches — that I am a poor, helpless, decrepit mouse, 
and that I can do nothing at all. This is one of the 
ways he has taken to create that impression. I don't 
know any other way to meet it, except this. I don't 
want to quarrel with him, — to call him a liar, — but 
when I come square up to him I don't know what else 
to call him, if I must tell the truth out. I want to be 
at peace, and reserve all my fighting powers for neces- 
sary occasions. My time, now, is very nearly out, and 
I give up the trifle that is left to the judge to let him set 
my knees trembling again — if he can. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 151 



SPEECH IN THE FOURTH JOINT DEBATE 
WITH DOUGLAS, AT CHARLESTON, ILL., 
SEP, 18, 1858. 

[Here we give the reader only part of Mr. Lincoln's address 
at Charleston, since much of it is taken up with the controversy 
between Judfie Douglas and Judge Trumbull, Illinois senator in 
Congress, arising out of the charge made by Trumbull, that 
" there was a plot entered into to have a constitution formed 
for Kansas, and put in force without giving the people an oppor- 
tunity to vote upon it, and that Mr. Douglas icas in the plot." 
Into this matter and the evidence in support of it. together with 
Judge Douglas's partial disclaimer or explanation of what oc- 
curred, we do not deem it necessary here to enter ; hence the ex- 
clusion of Mr. Lincoln's argument in regard to it. By pref- 
erence, we confine our extract to what Mr. Lincoln had otherwise 
to say on this occasion, and in his rejoinder to Douglas]. 

Mr. Lincoln's Re joinder in the Charleston Joint Debate. 

Fellow citizens: Judge Douglas has said to you that 
he has not been able to get from me an answer to the 
question whether I am in favor of negro citizenship. 
So far as I know, the judge never asked me the question 
before. He shall have no occasion to ever ask it again, 
for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of 
negro citizenship. This furnishes me an occasion for 
saying a few words upon the subject. I mentioned in 
a certain speech of mine, which has been printed, that 
the Supreme Court had decided that a negro could not 
possibly be made a citizen, and without saying what 
was my ground of complaint in regard to that, or 
whether I had any ground of complaint, Judge Douglas 
has from that thing manufactured nearly everything 
that he ever says about my disposition to produce an 
equality between the negroes and the white people. 
If any one will read my speech, he will find I mentioned 
that as one of the points decided in the course of the 



152 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Supreme Court opinions, but I did not state what 
objection I had to it. But Judge Douglas tells the 
people what my objection was when I did not tell them 
myself. Now my opinion is that the different States 
have the power to make a negro a citizen under the Con- 
stitution of the United States, if they choose. The 
Dred Scott decision decides that they have not that 
power. If the State of Illinois had that power, I 
should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I 
have to say about it. 

Judge Douglas has told me that he heard my speeches 
north and my speeches south — that he had heard me at 
Ottawa and at Freeport in the north, and recently at 
Jonesboro in the south, and there was a very different 
cast of sentiment in the speeches made at the different 
points. I will not charge upon Judge Douglas that he 
wilfully misrepresents me, but I call upon every fair- 
minded man to take these speeches and read them, and 
I dare him to point out any difference between my 
speeches north and south. While I am here perhaps I 
ought to say a word, if I have the time, in regard to 
the latter portion of the judge's speech, which was a 
sort of declamation in reference to my having said I 
entertained the belief that this government would not 
endure half slave and half free. I have said so, and I 
did not say it without what seemed to me to be good 
reasons. It perhaps would require more time than I 
have now to set forth these reasons in detail ; but let 
me ask you a few questions. Have we ever had any 
peace on this slavery question? When are we to have 
peace upon it if it is kept in the position it now oc- 
cupies? How are we ever to have peace upon it? 
That is an important question. To be sure, if we will 
all stop and allow Judge Douglas and his friends to 
march on in their present career until they plant the 
institution all over the nation, here and wherever else 
our flag waves, and we acquiesce in it, there will be 
peace. But let me ask Judge Douglas how he is going 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHA^I LINCOLX. 153 

to get the people to do that? They have been wrangling 
over this question for at least forty years. This was 
the cause of the agitation resulting in the Missouri 
compromise ; this produced the troubles at the annexa- 
tion of Texas, in the acquisition of the territory ac- 
quired in the Mexican war. Again, this was the trouble 
which was quieted by the compromise of 1S50, when it 
was settled '* forever," as both the great political parties 
declared in their national conventions. That " for- 
ever " turned out to be just four years, when Judge 
Douglas himself reopened it. 

When is it likely to come to an end? He introduced 
the Nebraska bill in 1854 to put another end to the 
slavery agitation. He promised that it would finish it 
all up immediately, and he has never made a speech 
since until he got into a quarrel with the President 
about the Lecompton constitution, in which he has not 
declared that we are just at the end of the slavery 
agitation. But in one speech, I think last winter, he 
did say that he did n't quite see when the end of the 
slavery agitation would come. Now he tells us again 
that it is all over, and the people of Kansas have voted 
down the Lecompton constitution. How is it over? 
That w^as only one of the attempts at putting an end 
to the slavery agitation — one of these " final settle- 
ments." Is Kansas in the Union? Has she formed a 
constitution that she is likely to come in under? Is 
not the slavery agitation still an open question in that 
Territory? Has the voting down of that constitution 
put an end to all the trouble? Is that more likely to 
settle it than every one of these previous attempts to 
settle the slavery agitation? Now, at this day in the 
history of the world we can no more foretell where the 
end of this slavery agitation will be than we can see the 
end of the world itself. The Nebraska-Kansas bill 
was introduced four years and a half ago, and if the 
agitation is ever to come to an end, we may say we are 
four years and a half nearer the end. So, too, we can 



;1^54 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

say we are four years and a half nearer tlie end of the 
world; and we can just as clearly see the end of the 
world as we can see the end of this agitation. The 
Kansas settlement did not conclude it. If Kansas 
should sink to-day, and leave a great vacant space in 
the earth's surface, this vexed question would still be 
among us. I say, then, there is no way of putting an 
end to the slavery agitation amongst us but to jmt it 
back upon the basis where our fathers placed it, no 
way but to keep it out of our new Territories — to 
restrict it forever to the old States where it now exists. 
Then the public mind will rest in the belief that it is 
in the course of ultimate extinction. That is one way 
of putting an end to the slavery agitation. 

The other way is for us to surrender and let Judge 
Douglas and his friends have their way and plant 
slavery over all the States — cease speaking of it as in 
any way a wrong^regard slavery as one of the common 
matters of property, and speak of negroes as we do of 
our horses and cattle. But while it drives on in its 
state of progress as it is now driving, and as it has 
driven for the last five years, I have ventured tlie opin- 
ion, and I say to-day, that we will have no end to the 
slavery agitation until it takes one turn or the other. 
I do not mean that when it takes a turn toward ulti- 
mate extinction it will be in a day, nor in a year, nor 
in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peace- 
ful way ultimate extinction would occur in less than 
a hundred years at least; but that it will occur in the 
best way for both races, in God's own good time, I 
have no doubt. But, my friends, I have used up more 
of my time than I intended on this point. 

Now, in regard to this matter about Trumbull and 
myself having made a bargain to sell out the entire 
Whig and Democratic parties in 1854, Judge Douglas 
brings forward no evidence to sustain his charge, 
except the speech Matheny is said to have made in 
1856, in which he told a cock-and-bull story of that sort, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAJ^I LINCOLN". ^55 

upon the same moral principles that Judge Douglas 
tells it here to-day. This is the simple truth. I do not 
care greatly for the story, but this is the truth of it, 
and I have twice told Judge Douglas to his face, that 
from beginning to end there is not one word of truth 
in it. 1 have called upon him for the proof, and he does 
not at all meet me as Trumbull met him upon that of 
which we were just talking, by producing the record. 
He did n't bring the record, because there was no 
record for him to bring. When he asks if I am ready 
to indorse Trumbull's veracity after he has broken a 
bargain with me, I reply that if Trumbull had broken 
a bargain with me, I would not be likely to indorse 
his veracity; but I am ready to indorse his veracity 
because neither in that thing, nor in any other, in all 
the years that I have known Lyman Trumbull, have 1 
known him to fail of his word or tell a falsehood, large 
or small. It is for that reason that I indorse Lyman 
Trumbull. 

Mr. James Brown [Douglas postmaster] : What 
does Ford's historj^ say about him? 

Mr. Lincoln : Some gentleman asks me what Ford's 
historj" says about him. My only recollection is, that 
Ford speaks of Trumbull in very disrespectful terms 
in several portions of his book, and that he talks a 
great deal worse of Judge Douglas. I refer you, sir, 
to the history for examination. 

Judge Douglas complains at considerable length 
about a disposition on the part of Trumbull and myself 
to attack him personally. I want to attend to that 
suggestion a moment. I don't want to be unjustly 
accused of dealing illiberally or unfairly with an ad- 
versary, either in court, or in a political canvass, or 
anywhere else. I would despise myself if I supposed 
myself ready to deal less liberally with an adversary 
than I was willing to be treated myself. Judge Doug- 
las, in a general way, without putting it in a direct 
shape, revives the old charge against me in reference 



;^56 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to the Mexican war. He does not take the responsi- 
bility of putting it in a very definite form, but makes 
a general reference to it. That charge is more than ten 
years old. He complains of Trumbull and myself, 
because he says we bring charges against him one or 
two years old. He knows, too, that in regard to the 
Mexican war story, the more respectable papers of his 
own party throughout the State have been compelled 
to take it back and acknowledge that it was a lie. 

[Here Mr. Lincoln turned to the crowd on the plat- 
form, and selecting Hon. Orlando B. Ficklin, led him 
forward and said:] 

I do not mean to do anything with Mr. Ficklin, ex- 
cept to present his face and tell you that he personally 
knows it to be a lie ! He was a member of Congress at 
the only time I was in Congress, and he knows that 
whenever there was an attempt to procure a vote of 
mine which would indorse the origin and justice of the 
war, I refused to give such indorsement, and voted 
against it; but I never voted against the supplies for 
the army, and he knows, as well as Judge Douglas, that 
whenever a dollar was asked by way of compensation 
or otherwise, for the benefit of the soldiers, I gave all 
the votes that Ficklin or Douglas did, and perhaps 
more. 

Mr. Ficklin : My friends, I wish to say this in refer- 
ence to the matter. Mr. Lincoln and myself are just 
as good personal friends as Judge Douglas and myself. 
In reference to this Mexican war, my recollection is 
that when Ashmun's resolution [amendment] was 
offered by Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts, in which he 
declared that the Mexican war was unnecessarily and 
unconstitutionally commenced by the President, — my 
recollection is that Mr. Lincoln voted for that resolu- 
tion. 

Mr. Lincoln: That is the truth. Now you all 
remember that was a resolution censuring the Presi- 
dent for the manner in which the war was begun. You 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 157 

know they have charged that I voted against the 
supplies, by which I starved the soldiers who were out 
fighting the battles of their country. I say that Fick- 
lin knows it is false. When that charge was brought 
forward by the Chicago '' Times," the Springfield 
" Register " [Douglas organ] reminded the " Times " 
that the charge really applied to John Henry; and 1 
do know that John Henry is now making speeches and 
fiercely battling for Judge Douglas. If the judge now 
says that he offers this as a sort of a set-off to what I 
said to-day in reference to Trumbull's charge, then 
I remind him that he made this charge before I said a 
word about Trumbull's. He brought this forward at 
Ottawa, the first time we met face to face; and in the 
opening speech that Judge Douglas made, he attacked 
me in regard to a matter ten years old. Is n't he a 
pretty man to be whining about people making charges 
against him only two years old ! 

The judge thinks it is altogether wrong that I should 
have dwelt upon this charge of Trumbull's at all. I 
gave the apology for doing so in my opening speech. 
Perhaps it did n't fix your attention. I said that when 
Judge Douglas was speaking at places where I spoke 
on the succeeding day, he used very ha-rsh language 
about this charge. Two or three times afterward I 
said I had confidence in Judge Trumbull's veracity and 
intelligence; and my own opinion was, from what I 
knew of the character of Judge Trumbull, that he 
would vindicate his position, and prove whatever he 
had stated to be true. This I repeated two or three 
times; and then I dropped it, without saying anything 
more on the subject for weeks — perhaps a month. I 
passed it by without noticing it at all till I found at 
Jacksonville that Judge Douglas, in the plenitude of 
his power, is not willing to answer Trumbull and let 
me alone ; but he comes out there and uses this lan- 
guage: "He should not hereafter occupy his time in 
refuting such charges made by Trumbull, but that Lin- 



]^58 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

coin having indorsed the character of Trumbull for 
veracity, he should hold him [Lincoln] responsible for 
the slanders." What was Lincoln to do? Did he not 
do right, when he had the fit opportunity of meeting 
Judge Douglas here, to tell him he was ready for the 
responsibility? I ask a candid audience whether in 
doing thus Judge Douglas was not the assailant rather 
than I? Here I meet him face to face, and say I am 
ready to take the responsibility so far as it rests on 
me. 

Having done so, I ask the attention of this audience 
to the question whether I have succeeded in sustaining 
the charge, and whether Judge Douglas has at all suc- 
ceeded in rebutting it. You all heard me call upon 
him to say which o^ these pieces of evidence was a for- 
gery. Does he say that whajt I present here as a copy 
of the original Toombs bill is a forgery? Does he say 
that what I present as a copy of the bill reported by 
himself is a forgery? Or what is presented as a tran- 
script from the '" Globe," of the quotations from Big- 
ler's speech, is a forgery? Does he say the quotations 
from his own speech are forgeries? Does he say this 
transcript from Trumbull's speech is a forgery? ['' He 
did n't deny one of them."] I would then like to know 
how it comes about that when each piece of a story is 
true, the whole story turns out false? I take it these 
people have some sense; they see plainly that Judge 
Douglas is playing cuttlefish, a small species of fish 
that has no mode of defending itself when pursued 
except by throwing out a black fluid, which makes the 
water so dark the enemy cannot see it, and thus it 
escapes. Is not the judge playing the cuttlefish? 

Now I would ask very special attention to the con- 
sideration of Judge Douglas's speech at Jacksonville; 
and when you shall read his speech of to-day, I ask you 
to watch closely and see which of these pieces of testi- 
mony, every one of which he says is a forgery, he has 
phown to be such. Not one of them has he shown to 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^59 

be a forgery. Then I ask the original question, if each 
of the pieces of testimony is true, how is it possible 
that the whole is a falsehood? 

In regard to Trumbull's charge that he [Douglas] 
inserted a provision into the bill to prevent the consti- 
tution being submitted to the people, what was his 
answer? He comes here and reads from the " Congres- 
sional Globe " to show that on his motion that pro- 
vision was struck out of the bill. Why, Trumbull has 
not said it was not stricken out, but Trumbull says he 
[Douglas] put it in, and it is no answer to the charge 
to say he afterward took it out. Both are perhaps 
true. It was in regard to that thing precisely that 1 
told him he had dropped the cub. Trumbull shows you 
by his introducing the bill that it was his cub. It is 
no answer to that assertion to call Trumbull a liar 
merely because he did not specially say that Douglas 
struck it out. Suppose that were the case, does it 
answer Trumbull? I assert that you [pointing to an 
individual] are here to-day, and you undertake to prove 
me a liar by showing that you were in Mattoon yester- 
day. I say that you took your hat off your head, and 
you prove me a liar by putting it on your head. That 
is the whole force of Douglas's argument. 

Now, I want to come back to my original question. 
Trumbull says that Judge Douglas had a bill with a 
provision in it for submitting a constitution to be made 
to a vote of the people of Kansas. Does Judge Doug- 
las deny that fact? Does he deny that the provision 
which Trumbull reads was put in that bill? Then 
Trumbull says he struck it out. Does he dare to deny 
that? He does not, and I have the right to repeat the 
question — why Judge Douglas took it out? Bigler 
has said there was a combination of certain senators, 
among whom he did not include Judge Douglas, by 
which it was agreed that the Kansas bill should have 
a clause in it not to have the constitution formed under 
it submitted to a vote of the people. He did not saj 



160 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN", 



that Douglas was among them, but we prove by anothei* 
source that about the same time Douglas comes into the 
Senate with that provision stricken out of the bill. Al- 
though Bigler cannot say they were all working in 
concert, yet it looks very much as if the thing was 
agreed upon and done with a mutual understanding 
after the conference ; and while we do not know that it 
was absolutely so, yet it looks so probable that we have 
a right to call upon the man who knows the true reason 
why it was done, to tell what the true reason was. 
When he will not tell what the true reason was, he 
stands in the attitude of an accused thief who has 
stolen goods in his possession, and when called to ac- 
count refuses to tell where he got them. Not only is 
this the evidence, but when he comes in with, the bill 
having the provision stricken out, he tells us in a 
speech, not then, but since, that these alterations and 
modifications in the bill had been made by him, in 
consultation with Toombs, the originator of the bill. 
He tells us the same to-day. He says there were certain 
modifications made in the bill in committee that he did 
not vote for. I ask you to remember while certain 
amendments were made which he disapproved of, but 
which a majority of the committee voted in, he has him- 
self told us that in this particular the alterations and 
modifications were made by him upon consultation 
with Toombs. We have his own v\'ord that these altera- 
tions were made by him and not by the committee. 

Now, I ask what is the reason Judge Douglas is so 
chary about coming to the exact question? What is 
the reason he will not tell you anything about how it 
was made, by whom it was made, or that he remembers 
it being made at all ? Why does he stand playing upon 
the meaning of words, and quibbling around the edges 
of the evidence? If he can explain all this, but leaves 
it unexplained, I have a right to infer that Judge Doug- 
las understood it was the purpose of his party, in 
engineering that bill through, to make a constitution, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. IQI 

and have Kansas come into the Union with that con- 
stitution, without its being submitted to a vote of the 
people. If he will explain his action on this question, 
by giving a better reason for the facts that happened 
than he has done, it will be satisfactory. But until he 
does that — until he gives a better or more plausible 
reason than he has offered against the evidence in the 
case — I suggest to him it will not avail him at all that 
he swells himself up, takes on dignity, and calls people 
liars. Why, sir, there is not a word in Trumbull's 
speech that depends on Trumbull's veracity at all. He 
has only arrayed the evidence and told you what fol- 
lows as a matter of reasoning. There is not a state- 
ment in the whole speech that depends on Trumbull's 
word. If you have ever studied geometry, you remem- 
ber that by a course of reasoning Euclid proves that 
all the angles in a triangle are equal to two right 
angles. Euclid has shown you how to work it out. 
Now, if you undertake to disprove that proposition, and 
to show that it is erroneous, would you prove it to be 
false by calling Euclid a liar? They tell me that my 
time is out, and therefore I close. 
11 



162 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



SPEECH m REPLY TO DOUGLAS (IN" THE FIFTH 
JOINT DEBATE) AT GALESBURG, ILL., OCT. 

7, 1858. 

[In this rejoinder to Douglas, Lincoln insists upon his con- 
tention that negroes are, by implication, included in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and challenges his adversary to prove, fron« 
the writings of the author of it, or from other public men of 
eminence, that he is wrong in so saying. He also rebuts what 
Douglas had said of the Republican party, that it was a sectional 
and not a national one, and that there was an unholy, unnatural 
alliance between the Republicans and the National Democrats. 
Another matter discussed in the address includes Lincoln's as- 
sertion, or belief, in opposition to Douglas's contention, that the 
right of property in a slave is not distinctly and expressly af- 
firmed in the U. S. Constitution. Still another matter debated 
or inquired into is, whether either of the contending men in these 
debates would oppose the acquisition of further territory within 
the United States if slavery were first prohibited therein? These 
and other points discussed add interest to the present instalment 
of Lincoln's contribution to the remarkable debates]. 

Mr. Lincoln's Reply in the Galeshurg Joint Debate. 

My FeUow-eitkens: A very large portion of the 
speech which Judge Douglas has addressed to you has 
previously been delivered and put in print. I do not 
mean that for a hit upon the judge at all. If I had not 
been interrupted, I was going to say that such an 
answer as I was able to make to a very large portion of 
it, had already been more than once made and pub- 
lished. There has been an opportunity afforded to the 
public to see our respective views upon the topics dis- 
cussed in a large portion of the speech which he has 
just delivered. I make these remarks for the purpose 
of excusing myself for not passing over the entire 
ground that the judge has traversed. I, however, desire 
to take up some of the points that he has attended to, 
and ask your attention to them, and I shall follow him 




Lincoln Statue, by St. Gaudens, Chicago 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHA:\I LIXCOLX. ^q^ 

backward upon some notes which I have taken, re- 
versing the order by beginning where he concluded. 

The judge has alluded to the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, and insisted that negroes are not included in 
that Declaration ; and that it is a slander upon the 
framers of that instrument to suppose that negroes 
were meant therein; and he asks you: Is it possible 
to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal 
paper, could have supposed himself applying the lan- 
guage of that instrument to the negro race, and yet 
held a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not 
at once have freed them? I only have to remark upon 
this part of the judge's speech (and that, too, very 
briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that 
point for any great length of time), that I believe the 
entire records of the world, from the date of the Dec- 
laration of Independence up to within three years ago, 
may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from 
one single man, that the negro was not included in the 
Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge 
Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Wasliington 
ever said so, that any president ever said so, that any 
member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man 
upon the wdiole earth ever said so, until the necessities 
of the present policy of the Democratic party, in regard 
to slavery, had to invent that affirmation. And I will 
remind Judge Douglas and this audience that while Mr. 
Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he 
was, in speaking upon this very subject, he used the 
strong language that " he trembled for his country 
when he remembered that God was just"; and I will 
offer the highest premium in my power to Judge Doug- 
las if he will show that he, in all his life, ever uttered 
a sentiment at all akin to that of Jefferson. 

The next thing to which I will ask your attention is 
the judge's comments upon the fact, as he assumes it 
to be, that we cannot call our public meetings as Re- 
publican meetings; and he instances Tazewell County 



2g4 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

as one of the places where the friends of Lincoln have 
called a public meeting and have not dared to name it 
a Republican meeting. He instances Monroe County 
as another where Judge Trumbull and Jehu Baker 
addressed the persons whom the judge assumes to be 
the friends of Lincoln, calling them the " Free Democ- 
racy." I have the honor to inform Judge Douglas that 
he spoke in that very county of Tazewell last Saturday, 
and I was there on Tuesday last, and when he spoke 
there he spoke under a call not venturing to use the 
word " Democrat." [Turning to Judge Douglas.] 
What think you of this? 

So, again, there is another thing to which I would 
ask the judge's attention upon this subject. In the 
contest of 1856 his party delighted to call themselves 
together as the " National Democracy," but now, if 
there should be a notice put up anywhere for a meeting 
of the "National Democracy," Judge Douglas and his 
friends would not come. They would not suppose 
themselves invited. They would understand that it 
was a call for those hateful postmasters whom he talks 
about. 

Now a few words in regard to these extracts from 
speeches of mine which Judge Douglas has read to you, 
and which he supposes are in very great contrast to 
each other. Those speeches have been before the public 
for a considerable time, and if they have any inconsis- 
tency in them, if there is any conflict in them, the pub- 
lic have been able to detect it. When the judge says, 
in speaking on this subject, that I make speeches of 
one sort for the people of the northern end of the State, 
and of a different sort for the southern people, he as- 
sumes that I do not understand that my speeches will 
be put in print and read north and south. I knew all 
the while that the speech that I made at Chicago and 
the one I made at Jonesboro and the one at Charleston 
would all be put in print, and all the reading and intel- 
ligent men in the community would see them and know 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1^5 

all about my opinions; and I have not supposed, and 
do not now suppose, that there is any conflict whatever 
between them. But the judge will have it that if we 
do not confess that there is a sort of inequality between 
the white and black races which justifies us in making 
them slaves, we must, then, insist that there is a degree 
of equality that requires us to make them our wives. 
Now, I have all the while taken a broad distinction in 
regard to that matter; and that is all there is in these 
different speeches which he arrays here, and the entire 
reading of either of the speeches will show that that 
distinction was made. Perhaps by taking two parts 
of the same speech he could have got up as much of a 
conflict as the one he has found. T have all the while 
maintained that in so far as it should be insisted that 
there was an equality between the white and black races 
that should produce a perfect social and political 
equality, it was an impossibility. This you have seen 
in my printed speeches, and with it I have said that in 
their right to " life, libert}', and the pursuit of happi- 
ness," as proclaimed in that old Declaration, the infe- 
rior races are our equals. And these declarations I 
have constantly made in reference to the abstract 
moral question, to contemplate and consider when we 
are legislating about any new country which is not 
already cursed with the actual presence of the evil — 
slavery. I have never manifested any impatience with 
the necessities that spring from the actual presence of 
black people amongst us, and the actual existence of 
slavery amongst us where it does already exist; but I 
have insisted that, in legislating for new countries 
where it does not exist, there is no just rule other than 
that of moral and abstract right. With reference to 
those new countries, those maxims as to the right of 
a people to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness " 
were the just rules to be constantly referred to. There 
is no misunderstanding this, except by men interested 
to misunderstand it. I take it that I have to address 



IQQ SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

an intelligent and reading community who will peruse 
what I say, weigh it, and then judge whether I advance 
improper or unsound views, or whether I advance hypo- 
critical and deceptive and contrary views in different 
portions of the country. I believe myself to be guilty 
of no such thing as the latter, though, of course, I can- 
not claim that I am entirely free from all error in the 
opinions I advance. 

The judge has also detained us awhile in regard to 
the distinction between his party and our party. His 
he assumes to be a national party — ours a sectional one. 
He does this in asking the question whether this 
country has any interest in the maintenance of the Re- 
publican party? He assumes that our party is alto- 
gether sectional — that the party to which he adheres is 
national ; and the argument is that no party can be a 
rightful party — can be based upon rightful principles 
— unless it can announce its principles everywhere. I 
presume that Judge Douglas could not go into Russia 
and announce the doctrine of our national Democracy; 
he could not denounce the doctrine of kings and em- 
perors and monarchies in Russia ; and it may be true of 
this country, that in some places we may not be able to 
proclaim a doctrine as clearly true as the truth of De- 
mocracy, because there is a section so directly opposed 
to it that they will not tolerate us in doing so. Is it 
the true test of the soundness of a doctrine, that in some 
places people won't let j^ou proclaim it? Is that the 
way to test the truth of any doctrine? Why, I under- 
stand that at one time the people of Chicago would not 
let Judge Douglas preach a certain favorite doctrine of 
his. I commend to his consideration the question, 
whether he takes that as a test of the unsoundness of 
what he wanted to preach. 

There is another thing to which I wish to ask atten- 
tion for a little while on this occasion. What has 
always been the evidence brought forward to prove 
that the Republican party is a sectional party? The 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLI^. iQ'f 

main one Avas that in the Southern portion of the Union 
the people did not let the Republicans proclaim their 
doctrines amongst them. That has been the main evi- 
dence brought forward — that they had no supporters, 
or substantially none, in the slave States. The South 
have not taken hold of our principles as we announce 
them ; nor does Judge Douglas now grapple with those 
principles. We have a Republican State platform, laid 
down in Springfield in June last, stating our position 
all the way through the questions before the country. 
We are now far advanced in this canvass. Judge Doug- 
las and I have made perhaps forty speeches apiece, and 
we have now for the fifth time met face to face in de- 
bate, and up to this day I have not found either Judge 
Douglas or any friend of his taking hold of the Repub- 
lican platform or laying his finger upon anything in it 
that is wrong. I ask you all to recollect that. Judge 
Douglas turns away from the platform of principles 
to the fact that he can find people somewhere who will 
not allow us to announce those princii)les. If he had 
great confidence that our principles were wrong, he 
would take hold of them and demonstrate them to be 
wrong. But he does not do so. The only evidence he 
has of their being wrong is in the fact that there are 
people who won't allow us to preach them. I ask again 
is that the way to test the soundness of a doctrine? 

I ask his attention also to the fact that by the rule of 
nationality he is himself fast becoming sectional. I 
ask his attention to the fact that his speeches would 
not go as current now south of the Ohio River as they 
have formerly gone there. I ask his attention to the 
fact that he felicitates himself to-day that all the Demo- 
crats of the free States are agreeing with him, while 
he omits to tell us that the Democrats of any slave 
State agree with him. If he has not thought of this, 
I commend to his consideration the evidence in his own 
declaration, on this day, of his becoming sectional too. 
I see it rapidly approaching. Whatever may be the 



Igg SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOL}^. 

result of this ephemeral contest between Judge Douglas 
and myself, I see the day rapidly approaching when 
his pill of sectionalism, which he has been thrusting 
down the throats of Republicans for years past, will be 
crowded down his own throat. 

Now in regard to what Judge Douglas said (in the 
beginning of his speech) about the compromise of 1850 
containing the principle of the Nebraska bill ; although 
I have often presented my views upon that subject, yet 
as I have not done so in this canvass, I will, if you 
please, detain you a little with them. 1 have always 
maintained so far as I was able that there was nothing 
of the principle of the Nebraska bill in the compromise 
of 1850 at all — nothing whatever. Where can you find 
the principle of the Nebraska bill in that compromise? 
If anywhere, in the two pieces of the compromise organ- 
izing the Territories of New Mexico and Utah. It was 
expressly provided in these two acts that, when they 
came to be admitted into the Union, they should be 
admitted with or without slavery, as they should 
choose, by their own constitutions. Nothing was said 
in either of those acts as to what was to be done in 
relation to slavery during the territorial existence of 
those Territories, while Henry Clay constantly made 
the declaration (Judge Douglas recognizing him as a 
leader) that, in his opinion, the old Mexican laws 
would control that question during the territorial ex- 
istence, and that these old Mexican laws excluded 
slavery. How can that be used as a principle for de- 
claring that during the territorial existence, as well as 
at the time of framing the constitution, the people, if 
you please, might have slaves if they wanted them? I 
am not discussing the question whether it is right or 
wrong; but how are the New Mexican and Utah laws 
patterns for the Nebraska bill? I maintain that the 
organization of Utah and New Mexico did not establish 
a general principle at all. It had no feature establish- 
ing a general principle. The acts to which I have 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 159 

referred were a part of a general system of compro- 
mises. They did not lay down what was proposed as a 
regular policy for the Territories; only an agreement in 
this particular case to do in that way, because other 
things were done that were to be a compensation for 
it. They were allowed to come in in that shape, be- 
cause in another way it was paid for — considering that 
as a part of that system of measures called the compro- 
mise of 1850, which finally included half a dozen acts. 
It included the admission of California as a free State, 
which was kept out of the Union for half a year because 
it had formed a free constitution. It included the 
settlement of the boundary of Texas, which had been 
undefined before, which was in itself a slavery question; 
for if you pushed the line further west, you made Texas 
larger, and made more slave Territory; while if you 
drew the line toward the east, you narrowed the 
boundary and diminished the domain of slavery, and 
by so much increased free Territory. It included the 
abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. 
It included the passage of a new fugitive-slave law. All 
these things were put together, and though passed in 
separate acts, were nevertheless in legislation (as the 
speeches at the time will show) made to depend upon 
each other. Each got votes, with the understanding 
that the other measures were to pass, and by this sys- 
tem of compromise, in that series of measures, those 
two bills — the New Mexico and Utah bills — were 
passed; and I say for that reason they could not be 
taken as models, framed upon their own intrinsic prin- 
ciple, for all future Territories. And I have the evi- 
dence of this in the fact that Judge Douglas, a year 
afterward, or more than a year afterward perhaps, 
when he first introduced bills for the purpose of fram- 
ing new Territories, did not attempt to follow these 
bills of New Mexico and Utah ; and even when he intro- 
duced this Nebraska bill, I think you will discover that 
he did not exactly follow them. But I do not wish to 



170 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAAI LINCOLN. 

dwell at great length upon this branch of the dis- 
cussion. My own opinion is that a thorough investi- 
gation will show most plainly that the New Mexico and 
Utah bills were part of a system of compromise, and not 
designed as patterns for future territorial legislation, 
and that this Nebraska bill did not follow them as a 
pattern at all. 

The judge tells us, in proceeding, that he is opposed 
to making any odious distinctions between free and 
slave States. I am altogether unaware that the Re- 
publicans are in favor of making any odious distinc- 
tions between the free and slave States. But there still 
is a difference, I think, between Judge Douglas and 
the Republicans in this. I suppose that the real differ- 
ence between Judge Douglas and his friends and the 
Republicans, on the contrary, is that the judge is not in 
favor of making any difference between slavery and lib- 
erty — that he is in favor of eradicating, of pressing out 
of view, the questions of preference in this country for 
free or slave institutions; and consequently every 
sentiment he utters discards the idea that there is any 
wrong in slavery. Everything that emanates from him 
or his coadjutors in their course of policy carefully 
excludes the thought that there is anything wrong in 
slavery. All their arguments, if you will consider them, 
will be seen to exclude the thought that there is any- 
thing whatever Vvaong in slavery. If you will take 
the judge's speeches, and select the short and pointed 
sentences expressed by him, — as his declaration that he 
" don't care whether slavery is voted up or down," — 
you will see at once that this is perfectly logical, if 
you do not admit that slavery is wrong. If you do 
admit that it is wrong, Judge Douglas cannot logically 
say he don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted 
dow^n. Judge Douglas declares that if any community 
wants slavery they have a right to have it. He can say 
that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in 
slavery ; but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. l^ji 

cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do 
wrong. He insists that, upon the score of equality, 
the owners of slaves and owners of property — of horses 
and every other sort of property — should be alike, and 
hold them alike in a new Territory. That is perfectly 
logical, if the two species of property are alike, and 
are equally founded in right. But if you admit that 
one of them is wrong, 3'ou cannot institute any equality 
between right and wrong. And from this difference of 
sentiment — the belief on the part of one that the insti- 
tution is wrong, and a policy springing from that 
belief which looks to the arrest of the enlargement of 
that wrong; and this other sentiment, that it is no 
wrong, and a policy sprung from that sentiment which 
will tolerate no idea of preventing that wrong from 
growing larger, and looks to there never being an end 
of it through all the existence of things — arises the real 
difference between Judge Douglas and his friends on 
the one hand, and the Republicans on the other. Now, 
I confess myself as belonging to that class in the coun- 
try who contemplates slavery as a moral, social, and 
political evil, having due regard for its actual existence 
amongst us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in 
any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional 
obligations which have been thrown about it ; but who, 
nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the preven- 
tion of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time 
when as a wrong it may come to an end. 

Judge Douglas has again, for, I believe, the fifth 
time, if not the seventh, in my presence, reiterated his 
charge of a conspiracy or combination between the 
National Democrats and Republicans. What evidence 
Judge Douglas has upon this subject I know not, in- 
asmuch as he never favors us with any. I have said 
upon a former occasion, and I do not choose to suppress 
it now, that I have no objection to the division in the 
judge's party. He got it up himself. It was all his 
and their work. He had, I think, a great deal more to 



1^2 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAJM LINCOLN. 

do with the steps that led to the Lecompton constitu- 
tion than Mr. Buchanan had; though at last, when they 
reached it, they quarreled over it, and their friends 
divided upon it. I am very free to confess to Judge 
Douglas that I have no objection to the division; but 
I defy the judge to show any evidence that I have in 
any way promoted that division, unless he insists on 
being a witness himself in merely saying so. I can 
give all fair friends of Judge Douglas here to under- 
stand exactly the view that Eepublicans take in regard 
to that division. Don't you remember how two years 
ago the opponents of the Democratic party were divided 
between Fremont and Fillmore? I guess you do. Any 
Democrat who remembers that division will remember 
also that he was at the time very glad of it, and then 
he will be able to see all there is between the National 
Democrats and the Republicans. What we now think 
of the two divisions of Democrats, you then thought of 
the Fremont and Fillmore divisions. That is all there 
is of it. 

But if the judge continues to put forward the declara- 
tion that there is an unholy, unnatural alliance between 
the Republicans and the National Democrats, I now 
want to enter my protest against receiving him as an 
entirely competent witness upon that subject. I want 
to call to the judge's attention an attack he made upon 
me in the first one of these debates, at Ottawa, on the 
21st of August. In order to fix extreme Abolitionism 
upon me, Judge Douglas read a set of resolutions which 
he declared had been passed by a Republican State 
convention, in October, 1854, at Springfield, Illinois, 
and he declared I had taken part in that convention. 
It turned out that although a few men calling them- 
selves an anti-Nebraska State convention had sat at 
Springfield about that time, yet neither did I take 
any part in it, nor did it pass the resolutions or any 
such resolutions as Judge Douglas read. So apparent 
had it become that the resolutions which he read had 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAIil LINXOLX. 173 

not been passed at Springfield at all, nor by any State 
convention in which I had taken part, that seven days 
afterward, at Freeport, Judge Douglas declared that 
he had been misled by Charles H. Lanphier, editor of 
the " State Keglster," and Thomas L. Harris, member 
of Congress in that district, and he promised in that 
speech that when he went to Springfield he would inves- 
tigate the matter. Since then Judge Douglas has been 
to Springfield, and I presume has made the investiga- 
tion ; but a month has passed since he has been there, 
and so far as I know, he has made no report of the 
result of his investigation. I have waited as I think a 
sufficient time for the report of that investigation, and 
I have some curiosity to see and hear it. A fraud, an 
absolute forgery, was committed, and the perpetration 
of it was traced to the three — Lanphier, Harris, and 
Douglas. Whether it can be narrowed in any way, so 
as to exonerate any one of them, is what Judge Doug- 
las's report would probably show. 

It is true that the set of resolutions read by Judge 
Douglas were published in the Illinois " State Regis* 
ter" on the 16th of October, 1854, as being the resolu- 
tions of an anti-Nebraska convention which had sat 
in that same month of October, at Springfield. But it 
IS also true that the publication in the " Register " was 
a forgery then, and the question is still behind, which 
of the three, if not all of them, committed that forgery? 
The idea that it was done by mistake is absurd. The 
article in the Illinois " State Register " contains part 
of the real proceedings of that Springfield convention, 
showing that the writer of the article had the real pro- 
ceedings before him, and purposely threw out the 
genuine resolutions passed by the convention, and 
fraudulently substituted the others. Lanphier then, as 
now, was the editor of the "Register," so that there 
seems to be but little room for his escape. But then it 
is to be borne in mind that Lanphier had less interest 
in the object of that forgery than either of the other 



1Y4 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

two. The main object of that forgery at that time was 
to beat Yates and elect Harris to Congress, and that 
object was known to be exceedingly dear to Judge 
Douglas at that time. Harris and Douglas were both 
in Springfield when the convention was in session, and 
although they both left before the fraud appeared in the 
*' Register," subsequent events show that they have 
both had their eyes fixed upon that convention. 

The fraud having been apparently successful upon 
that occasion, both Harris and Douglas have more than 
once since then been attempting to put it to new uses. 
As the fisherman's wife, whose drowned husband was 
brought home with his body full of eels, said when she 
was asked what was to be done with him, " Take the 
eels out and set him again," so Harris and Douglas 
have shown a disposition to take the eels out of that 
stale fraud by which they gained Harris's election, and 
set the fraud again more than once. On the 9th of 
July, 1856, Douglas attempted a repetition of it upon 
Trumbull on the floor of the Senate of the United 
States, as will appear from the appendix to the " Con- 
gressional Globe " of that date. On the 9th of August, 
Harris attempted it again upon Norton in the House of 
Representatives, as will appear by the same document 
' — the appendix to the " Congressional Globe " of that 
date. On the 21st of August last, all three — Lanphier, 
Douglas, and Harris — reattempted it upon me at 
Ottawa. It has been clung to and played out again and 
again as an exceedingly high trump by this blessed trio. 
And now that it has been discovered publicly to be a 
fraud, we find that Judge Douglas manifests no sur- 
prise at it at all. He makes no complaint of Lanphier, 
who must have known it to be a fraud from the begin- 
ning. He, Lanphier, and Harris are just as cozy now, 
and just as active in the concoction of new schemes as 
they were before the general discovery of this fraud. 
Now all this is very natural if they are all alike guilty 
in that fraud, and it is very unnatural if any one of 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'. j^^S 

them is innocent. Lanpliier perhaps insists that tlie 
rule of honor among thieves does not quite require* 
him to take all upon himself, and consequently my 
friend Judge Douglas finds it difficult to make a satis- 
factory report upon his investigation. But meanwhile 
the three are agreed that each is '* a most honorable 
man." 

Judge Douglas requires an indorsement of his truth 
and honor by a reelection to the United States Senate, 
and he makes and reports against me and against Judge 
Trumbull, day after day, charges which we know to 
be utterly untrue, without for a moment seeming to 
think that this one unexplained fraud, which he 
promised to investigate^ will be the least drawback to 
his claim to belief. Harris ditto. He asks a reelection 
to the lower House of Congress without seeming to re- 
member at all that he is involved in this dishonorable 
fraud! The Illinois "State Register," edited by Lan- 
phier, then, as now, the central organ of both Harris 
and Douglas, continues to din the public ear with these 
assertions without seeming to suspect that they are at 
all lacking in title to belief. 

After all, the question still recurs upon us, how did 
that fraud originally get into the "State Register"? 
Lanphier then, as now, was the editor of that paper. 
Lanphier knows. Lanphier cannot be ignorant of how 
and by whom it was originally concocted. Can he be 
induced to tell, or if he has told, can Judge Douglas be 
induced to tell, how it originally was concocted? It 
may be true that Lanphier insists that the two men 
for whose benefit it was originally devised shall at least 
bear their share of it! How that is, I do not know, 
and while it remains unexplained, I hope to be par- 
doned if I insist that the mere fact of Judge Douglas 
making charges against Trumbull and myself is not 
quite sufficient evidence to establish them! 

While we were at Freeport, in one of these joint 
discussions, I answered certain interrogatories which 



■^^Q SPEECHES OF ABRAHAjM LIXCOLN". 

Judge Douglas had propounded to me, and there in turn 
propounded some to him, which he in a sort of way 
answered. The third one of these interrogatories I 
have with me, and wish now to make some comments 
upon it. It was in these words : " If the Supreme Court 
of the United States shall decide that States cannot 
exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of 
acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision 
as a rule of political action?" 

To this interrogatory Judge Douglas made no answer 
in any just sense of the word. He contented himself 
with sneering at the thought that it was possible for 
the Supreme Court ever to make such a decision. He 
sneered at me for propounding the interrogatory. I 
had not propounded it without some reflection, and I 
wish now to address to this audience some remarks 
upon it. 

In the second clause of the sixth article, I believe it 
is, of the Constitution of the United States, we find 
the following language : '" This Constitution and the 
laws of the United States which shall be made in pur- 
suance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall 
be made, under the authority of the United States, 
shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges 
in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the 
constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding." 

The essence of the Dred Scott case is compressed 
into the sentence which I will now read : " Now, as 
we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, 
upon a different point, the right of property in a slave 
is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitu- 
tion." I repeat it, " the right of property in a slave is 
distinctly and expressly affirmed in tlie Constitution " ! 
What is it to be "affirmed" in the Constitution? 
Made firm in the Constitution — so made that it cannot 
be separated from tlie Constitution without breaking 
the Constitution — durable as the Constitution, and 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLX. 177 

part of the Constitution? Now, remembering the pro- 
vision of the Constitution which I have read, affirm- 
ing that that instrument is the supreme law of the 
land; that the judges of every State shall be bound by 
it, any law or constitution of anj- State to the contrary 
notwithstanding; that the right of property in a slave 
is affirmed in that Constitution, is made, formed into, 
and cannot be separated from it without breaking it; 
durable as the instrument, part of the instrument, — 
what follows as a short and even syllogistic argument 
from it? I think it follows, and I submit to the con- 
sideration of men capable of arguing, whether as 1 
state it, in syllogistic form, the argument has any 
fault in it? 

Nothing in the constitution or laws of any State can 
destroy a right distinctly and expressly affirmed in 
the Constitution of the United States. 

The right of property in a slave is distinctly and 
expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the United 
States. "^ 

Therefore, nothing in the constitution or laws of any 
State can destroy the right of property in a slave. 

I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that 
argument ; assuming the truth of the premises, the con- 
clusion, so far as I have capacity at all to understand 
it, follows inevitably. There is a fault in it, as I think, 
but the fault is not in the reasoning; the falsehood, in 
fact, is a fault in the premises. I believe that the 
right of property in a slave is not distinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed in the Constitution, and Judge Doug- 
las thinks it is. I believe that the Supreme Court and 
the advocates of that decision may search in vain for the 
])lace in the Constitution where the right of property 
in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed. 1 say, 
therefore, that I think one of the premises is not true 
in fact. But it is true with Judge Douglas. Tt is true 
with the Supreme Court who pronounced it. They are 
estopped from denying it, and being estopped from 
13 



178 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLlSf. 

denying it, the conclusion follows that the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, being the supreme law, no 
constitution or law can interfere with it. It being 
affirmed in the decision that the right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Consti- 
tution, the conclusion inevitably follows that no State 
law or constitution can destroy that right. I then say 
to Judge Douglas, and to all others, that I think it 
will take a better answer than a sneer to show that 
those who have said that the right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Con- 
stitution are not prepared to show that no constitution 
or law can destroy that right. I say I believe it will 
take a far better argument than a mere sneer to show 
to the minds of intelligent men that whoever has so 
said is not prepared, whenever public sentiment is so 
far advanced as to justify it, to say the other. 

This is but an opinion, and the opinion of one very 
humble man ; but it is my opinion that the Dred Scott 
decision, as it is, never would have been made in its 
present form if the party that made it had not been 
sustained previously by the elections. My own opinion 
is that the new Dred Scott decision, deciding against 
the right of the people of the States to exclude slavery, 
will never be made if that party is not sustained by 
the elections. I believe, further, that it is just as sure 
to be made as to-morrow is to come, if that party shall 
be sustained. I have said upon a former occasion, and 
I repeat it now, that the course of argument that Judge 
Douglas makes use of upon this subject (I charge not 
his motives in this) is preparing the public mind for 
that new Dred Scott decision. I have asked him again 
to point out to me the reasons for his first adherence to 
the Dred Scott decision as it is. I have turned his at- 
tention to the fact that General Jackson differed with 
him in regard to the political obligation of a Supreme 
Court decision. I have asked his attention to the fact 
that Jefferson differed with him in regard to the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLI^. 179 

political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. Jef- 
ferson said that " judges are as honest as other men, 
and not more so." And he said, substantially, that 
whenever a free people should give up in absolute sub- 
mission to any department of government, retaining 
for themselves no appeal from it, their liberties were 
gone. I have asked his attention to the fact that the 
Cincinnati platform, upon which he says he stands, 
disregards a time-honored decision of the Supreme 
Court, in defying the power of Congress to establish 
a national bank. I have asked his attention to the fact 
that he himself was one of the most active instruments 
at one time in breaking down the Supreme Court of 
the State of Illinois, because it had made a decision 
distasteful to him — a struggle ending in the remarkable 
circumstance of his sitting down as one of the new 
judges who were to overslough that decision, getting 
his title of judge in that very way. 

So far in this controversy I can get no answer at all 
from Judge Douglas upon these subjects. Not one 
can I get from him, except that he swells himself up 
and says : ^' All of us who stand by the decision of the 
Supreme Court are the friends of the Constitution; 
all you fellows that dare question it in any way are 
the enemies of the Constitution." Now in this very 
devoted adherence to this decision, in opposition to all 
the great political leaders whom he has recognized as 
leaders — in opposition to his former self and history, 
there is something very marked. And the manner in 
which he adheres to it — not as being right upon the 
merits, as he conceives (because he did not discuss that 
at all), but as being absolutely obligatory upon every 
one simply because of the source from whence it comes 
— as that which no man can gainsay, whatever it may 
be — this is another marked feature of his adherence to 
that decision. It marks it in this respect, that it com- 
mits him to the next decision, whenever it comes, as 
being as obligatory as this one, since he does not in- 



j^gQ SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLIT. 

vestigate it, and won't inquire whether this opinion 
is right or wrong. So he takes the next one without 
inquiring whether it is right or wrong. He teaches 
men this doctrine, and in so doing prepares the public 
mind to take the next decision when it comes without 
any inquiry. In this I think I argue fairly (without 
questioning motives at all) that Judge Douglas is most 
ingeniously and powerfully preparing the public mind 
to take that decision when it comes; and not only so, 
but he is doing it in various other ways. In these 
general maxims about liberty — in his assertions that 
he " don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted 
down " ; that " whoever wants slavery has a right to 
have it"; that "upon principles of equality it should 
be allowed to go everywhere"; that ''there is no in- 
consistency between free and slave institutions " — in 
this he is also preparing (whether purposely or not) the 
way for making the institution of slavery national. I 
repeat again, for I wish no misunderstanding, that I do 
not charge that he means it so; but I call upon your 
minds to inquire, if you were going to get the best in- 
strument you could, and then set it to work in the most 
ingenious way, to prepare the public mind for this 
movement, operating in the free States, where there is 
now an abhorrence of the institution of slavery, could 
you find an instrument so capable of doing it as Judge 
Douglas, or one employed in so apt a way to do it? 

I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that 
Mr. Clay, when he was once answering an objection to 
the Colonization Society, that it had a tendency to the 
ultimate emancipation of the slaves, said that " those 
who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ulti- 
mate emancipation must do more than put down the 
benevolent efforts of the Colonization Society — they 
must go back to the era of our liberty and indepen- 
dence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual 
joyous return — they must blot out the moral lights 
around us — they must penetrate the human soul, and 



Speeches of abraHam lixcolx. igl 

eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty " ! 
And I do think — I repeat, though 1 said it on a former 
occasion — that Judge Douglas, and whoever, like him, 
teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it 
may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going 
back to the era of our liberty and independence, and, so 
far as in him lies, muzzling the cannon that thunders 
its annual joyous return ; that he is blowing out the 
moral lights around us, when he contends that who- 
ever wants slaves has a right to hold them ; that he is 
penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human 
soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love 
of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing 
the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the 
institution of slavery perpetual and national. 

There is, my friends, only one other point to which I 
will call your attention for the remaining time that I 
have left me, and perhaps I shall not occupy the entire 
time that I have, as that one point may not take me 
clear through it. 

Among the interrogatories that Judge Douglas pro- 
pounded to me at Freeport, there was one in about this 
language: "Are you opposed to the acquisition of any 
further territory to the United States, unless slavery 
shall first be prohibited therein?" I answered as I 
thought, in this way, that I am not generally opposed 
to the acquisition of additional territory, and that I. 
would support a proposition for the acquisition of 
additional territory, according as my supporting it was 
or was not calculated to aggravate this slavery ques- 
tion amongst us. I then proposed to Judge Douglas 
another interrogatory, which was correlative to that: 
" Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory in 
disregard of how it may affect us upon the slavery 
question?" Judge Douglas answered — that is, in his 
own way he answered it. I believe that, although he 
took a good many words to answer it, it was little more 
fully answered than any other. The substance of his 
answer was that this country would continue to expand 



j^g2 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

— that it would need additional territory — that it was 
as absurd to suppose that we could continue upon our 
present territory, enlarging in population as we are, 
as it would be to hoop a boy twelve years of age, and 
expect him to grow to man's size without bursting the 
hoops. I believe it was something like that. Conse- 
quently he was in favor of the acquisition of further 
territory, as fast as we might need it, in disregard of 
how it might affect the slavery question. I do not say 
this as giving his exact language, but he said so sub- 
stantially, and he would leave the question of slavery 
where the territory was acquired, to be settled by the 
people of the acquired territory. [" That's the doc- 
trine."] Maybe it is; let us consider that for a while. 
This will probably, in the run of things, become one 
of the concrete manifestations of this slavery question. 
If Judge Douglas's policy upon this question succeeds 
and gets fairly settled down until all opposition is 
crushed out, the next thing will be a grab for the terri- 
tory of poor Mexico, an invasion of the rich lands of 
South America, then the adjoining islands will fol- 
low, each one of which promises additional slave-fields. 
And this question is to be left to the people of those 
countries for settlement. When we shall get Mexico, 
I don't know whether the judge will be in favor of the 
Mexican people that we get with it settling that ques- 
tion for themselves and all others; because we know 
the judge has a great horror for mongrels, and I under- 
stand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly 
a race of mongrels. I understand that there is not morb 
than one person there out of eight who is a pure white, 
and I suppose from the judge's previous declaration 
that when we get Mexico, or any considerable portion 
of it, he will be in favor of these mongrels settling 
the question, which would bring him somewhat into 
collision with his horror of an inferior race. 

It is to be remembered, though, that this power of 
acquiring additional territory is a power confided to the 
President and Senate of the United States. It is a 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 153 

power not under the control of the representatives of 
the people any further than they, the President and the 
Senate, can be considered the representatives of the 
people. Let me illustrate that by a case we have in our 
history. When we acquired the territory from Mexico 
in the Mexican war, the House of Representatives, com- 
posed of the immediate representatives of the people, 
all the time insisted that the territory thus to be ac- 
quired should be brought in upon condition that slavery 
should be forever prohibited therein, upon the terms 
and in the language that slavery had been prohibited 
from coming into this country. That was insisted 
upon constantly, and never failed to call forth an 
assurance that any territory thus acquired should have 
that prohibition in it, so far as the House of Repre- 
sentatives was concerned. But at last the President 
and Senate acquired the territory without asking the 
House of Representatives anything about it, and took 
it without that prohibition. They have the power of 
acquiring territory without the immediate representa- 
tives of the people being called upon to say anything 
about it, thus furnishing a ver}' apt and powerful means 
of bringing new territory into the Union, and, when it 
is once brought into the country, involving us anew in 
this slavery agitation. It is therefore, as I think, a 
very important question for the consideration of the 
American people, whether the policy of bringing in 
additional territory, without considering at all how it 
will operate upon the safety of the Union in reference 
to this one great disturbing element in our national 
politics, shall be adopted as the policy of the country. 
You will bear in mind that it is to be acquired, accord- 
ing to the judge's view, as fast as it is needed, and the 
indefinite part of this proposition is that we have only 
Judge Douglas and his class of men to decide how 
fas^ it is needed. We have no clear and certain 
way of determining or demonstrating how fast terri- 
tory is needed by the necessities of the country. Who 
ever wants to go out filibustering, then, thinks that 



184 SPEECHES OF ABRAHA^I LINCOLN. 

more territory is needed. Whoever wants wider slave- 
fields feels sure that some additional territory is needed 
as slave territory. Then it is as easy to show the neces- 
sity of additional slave territory as it is to assert any- 
thing that is incapable of absolute demonstration. 
Whatever motive a man or a set of men may have for 
making annexation of property or territory, it is very 
easy to assert, but much less easy to disprove, that it ih 
necessary for the wants of the country. 

And now it only remains for me to say that I think 
it is a very grave question for the ])eople of this Union 
to consider whether, in view of the fact that this slavery 
question has been the only one that has ever endangered 
our republican institutions — the only one that has ever 
threatened or menaced a dissolution of the Union — 
that has ever disturbed us in such a way as to make 
us fear for the perpetuity of our liberty — in view of 
these facts, I think it is an exceedingly interesting and 
important question for this people to consider whether 
we shall engage in the policy of acquiring additional 
territory, discarding altogether from our consideration, 
while obtaining new territory, the question how it may 
affect us in regard to this the only endangering element 
to our liberties and national greatness. The judge's 
view has been expressed. I, in my answer to his ques- 
tion, have expressed mine. I think it will become an 
important and practical question. Our views are before 
the public. I am willing and anxious that, they should 
consider them fully — that they should turn it about 
and consider the importance of the question, and arrive 
at a just conclusion as to whether it is or is not wise 
in the people of this Union, in the acquisition of new 
territory, to consider whether it will add to the dis- 
turbance that is existing among us — whether it will 
add to the one only danger that has ever threatened the 
perpetuity of the Union or our own liberties. I think 
it is extremely important that they shall decide, and 
rightly decide, that question before entering upon 
that policy. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ige 



SPEECH ON OPENING THE SIXTH JOINT DE- 
BATE AT QUINCY, ILL., OCT. 13, 1858, WITH 
LINCOLN'S REJOINDER TO DOUGLAS. 

[In this speech, Mr. Lincoln once more deals interestingly and 
broadly, with the question of slavery and of the attitude of the 
Republican party with regard to it, on " a moral, a social, and a 
])olitical wrong."' He then looks at the question from thb 
Democratic, pro-slavery side— the side that deems slavery not 
only an historically existing one, but not in itself wrong. In 
his rejoinder to his adversary, he meets the latter's inquiry: 
" Why cannot the institution of slavery, or rather, why cannot 
the nation, part-slave and part-free, continue as our fathers made 
it forever?" — with this pointed and notable contention, that 
" the fathers did not make the nation half-slave and half-free." 
He insisted that " they found the institution of slavery existing 
here," adding " that they did not make it so, but left it so be- 
cause they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time." He 
clinched his argument with the further statement that when the 
fathers of the government abolished the slave-trade and adopted 
a system of restricting it from the new Territories where it had 
not existed, they placed it where they and all sensible men 
understood it was in the course of repression and ultimate ex- 
tinction]. 

We have in this nation the element of domestic 
slavery. It is a matter of absolute certainty that it is 
a disturbing element. It is the opinion of all the great 
men who have expressed an opinion upon it, that it is 
a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in re- 
gard to it. That controversy necessarily springs from 
difference of opinion, and if we can learn exactly — can 
reduce to the lowest elements — what that difference of 
opinion is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for 
discussing the different systems of policy that we would 
propose in regard to that disturbing element. I sug- 
gest that the difference of opinion, reduced to its lowest 
terms, is no other than the difference between the men 
who think slavery a wrong and those who do not think 



l^Q SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

it wrong. The Eepublican party think it wrong — we 
think it is a moral, a social, and a political wrong. We 
think it is a wrong not confining itself merely to the 
persons or the States where it exists, but that it is a 
wrong which in its tendency, to say the least, affects 
the existence of the whole nation. Because we think 
it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal 
with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other 
(vrong, in so far as we can prevent its growing any 
larger, and so deal with it that in the run of time there 
may be some promise of an end to it. We have a due 
regard to the actual presence of it amongst us, and the 
difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, 
and all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. 
I suppose that in reference both to its actual existence 
in the nation, and to our constitutional obligations, we 
have no right at all to disturb it in the States where 
it exists, and we profess that we have no more in- 
clination to disturb it than we have the right to do it. 
We go further than that : we don't propose to disturb 
it where, in one instance, we think the Constitution 
would permit us. We think the Constitution would 
permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia. 
Still we do not propose to do that, unless it should be 
in terms which I don't suppose the nation is very 
likely soon to agree to — the terms of making the 
emancipation gradual and compensating the unwilling 
owners. Where we suppose we have the constitutional 
right, we restrain ourselves in reference to the actual 
existence of the institution and the difficulties thrown 
about it. We also oppose it as an evil so far as it 
seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that 
shall restrict it to its present limits. We don't sup- 
pose that in doing this we violate anything due to the 
actual presence of the institution, or anything due to 
the constitutional guaranties thrown around it. 

We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, 
upon which I ought perhaps to address you a few 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 137 

words. We do not propose that when Dred Scott has 
been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, 
will decide him to be free. We do not propose that, 
when any other one, or one thousand, shall be decided 
by that court to be slaves, we will in any violent way 
disturb the rights of property thus settled ; but we 
nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule, 
which shall be binding on the voter to vote for nobody 
who thinks it wrong, which shall be binding on the 
members of Congress or the President to favor no meas- 
ure that does not actually concur with the principles 
of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it 
as a political rule in that way, because we think it lays 
the foundation not merely of enlarging and spreading 
out what we consider an evil, but it lays the foundation 
for spreading that evil into the States themselves. We 
propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can, 
and a new judicial rule established upon this subject. 

I will add this, that if there be any man who does not 
believe that slavery is wrong in the three aspects which 
I have mentioned, or in any one of them, that man is 
misplaced and ought to leave us. While, on the other 
hand, if there be any man in the Republican party 
who is impatient over the necessity springing from 
its actual presence, and is impatient of the constitu- 
tional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in 
disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with 
us. He will find his place somewhere else ; for we have 
a due regard, so far as we are capable of understand- 
ing them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as well 
as I can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in 
all their enormity. 

I will say now that there is a sentiment in the country 
contrary to me — a sentiment which holds that slavery 
is not wrong, and therefore it goes for the policy that 
does not propose dealing with it as a wrong. That 
policy is the Democratic policy, and that sentiment is 
the Democratic sentiment. If there be a doubt in the 



•j^gg SPEECHES OF ABRAHAIVI LINCOLN". 

mind of any one of this vast audience that this is really 
the central idea of the Democratic party, in relation 
to this subject, I ask him to bear with me while I state 
a few things tending, as I think, to prove that proposi- 
tion. In the first place, the leading man — I think I 
may do my friend Judge Douglas the honor of calling 
him such— advocating the present Democratic policy 
never himself says it is wrong. He has the high dis- 
tinction, so far as I know, of never having said slavery 
is either right or wrong. Almost everybody else says 
one or the other, but the judge never does. If there 
be a man in the Democratic party who thinks it is 
wrong, and yet clings to that party, I suggest to him 
in the first place that his leader don't talk as he does, 
for he never says that it is wrong. In the second place, 
I suggest to him that if he will examine the policy 
proposed to be carried forward, he will find that he 
carefully excludes the idea that there is anything 
wrong in it. If you will examine the arguments 
that are made on it, you will find that every one 
carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong 
in slavery. Perhaps that Democrat who says he is as 
much opposed to slavery as I am, will tell me that I 
am wrong about this. I wish him to examine his own 
course in regard to this matter a moment, and then see 
if his opinion will not be changed a little. You say it 
is wrong; but don't you constantly object to anybody 
else saying so? Do you not constantly argue that this 
is not the right place to oppose it? You say it must 
not be opposed in the free States, because slavery is 
not there; it must not be opposed in the slave States, 
because it is there; it must not be opposed in politics, 
because that will make a fuss ; it must not be opposed 
in the pulpit, because it is not religion. Then where is 
the place to oppose it? There is no suitable place to 
oppose it. There is no plan in the country to oppose 
this evil overspreading the continent, which you say 
yourself is coming. Frank Blair and Gratz Brown tried 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. jgQ 

to get up a system of gradual emaneipatiou in Mis- 
souri, had an election in August, and got beat ; and you, 
Mr. Democrat, threw up your hat and hallooed, " Hur- 
rah for Democracy' I " 

So I say again, that in regard to the arguments that 
are made, when Judge Douglas says he " don't care 
whether slavery is voted up or voted down," whether he 
means that as an individual expression of sentiment, or 
only as a sort of statement of his views on national 
policy, it is alike true to say that he can thus argue 
logically if he don't see anything wrong in it; but he 
cannot say so logically if he admits that slavery is 
v\-rong. He cannot say that he would as soon see a 
wrong voted up as voted down. When Judge Douglas 
says that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, 
they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical 
if there is nothing wrong in the institution ; but if you 
admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that any- 
body has a right to do wrong. When he says that 
slave property and horse and hog property are alike 
to be allowed to go into the Territories, upon the prin- 
ciples of equality, he is reasoning truly if there is no 
difference between them as property; but if the one is 
property, held rightfully, and the other is wrong, then 
there is no equality between the right and wrong; so 
that, turn it in any way you can, in all the arguments 
sustaining the Democratic policy, and in that policy 
itself, there is a careful, studied exclusion of the idea 
that there is anything wrong in slavery. Let us under- 
stand this. I am not, just here, trying to prove that we 
are right and they are wrong. I have been stating 
where we and they stand, and trying to show what is 
the real difference between us; and I now say that 
v.-henever we can get the question distinctly stated, — 
can get all these men who believe that slavery is in 
some of these respects wrong, to stand and act with us 
in treating it as a wrong, — then, and not till then. I 
think, will we in some way come to an end of this 
slavery agitation. 



190 SPEECHES OF ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 



Mr. Lincoln's Rejoinder in the Quincy Joint Debate. 

My Friends: I wish to return to Judge Douglas my 
profound thanks for his public annunciation here to- 
day to be put on record, that his system of policy in 
regard to the institution of slavery contemplates that 
it shall last forever. We are getting a little nearer 
the true issue of this controversy, and I am profoundly 
grateful for this one sentence. Judge Douglas asks 
you, " Why cannot the institution of slavery, or rather, 
why cannot the nation, part slave and part free, con- 
tinue as our fathers made it forever?" In the first 
place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation 
half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I 
insist that they found the institution of slavery existing 
here. They did not make it so, but they left it so be- 
cause they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time. 
When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a 
matter of choice, the fathers of the government made 
this nation part slave and part free, he assumes what is 
historically a falsehood. More than that : when the 
fathers of the government cut off the source of slavery 
by the abolition of the slave-trade, and adopted a system 
of restricting it from the new Territories where it had 
not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they 
understood, and all sensible men understood, it was 
in the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge 
Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our fathers 
made it, I ask him why he and his friends could not let 
it remain as our fathers made it? 

It is precisely all I ask of him in relation to the in- 
stitution of slavery, that it shall be placed upon the 
basis that our fathers placed it upon. Mr. Brooks, of 
South Carolina, once said, and truly said, that when 
this government was established, no one expected the 
institution of slavery to last until this day; and that 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". jg^ 

the men who formed this government were wiser and 
better than the men of these days ; but the men of these 
days had experience which the fathers had not, and 
that experience had taught them the invention of the 
cotton-gin, and this had made the perpetuation of the 
institution of slavery a necessity in this country. 
Judge Douglas could not let it stand upon the basis 
where our fathers placed it, but removed it, and put 
it upon the cotton-gin basis. It is a question, therefore, 
for him and his friends to answer — why they could 
not let it remain where the fathers of the government 
originally placed it. 

I hope nobody has understood me as trying to sustain 
the doctrine that we have a right to quarrel with 
Kentucky or Virginia, or any of the slave States, about 
the institution of slavery — thus giving the judge an 
opportunit}' to make himself eloquent and valiant 
against us in fighting for their rights. I expressly 
declared in my opening speech that I had neither the in- 
clination to exercise, nor the belief in the existence of, 
the right to interfere with the States of Kentucky or 
Virginia in doing as they pleased with slavery or any 
other existing institution. Then what becomes of all 
his eloquence in behalf of the rights of States, which 
are assailed by no living man? 

But I have to hurry on, for I have but a half-hour. 
The judge has informed me, or informed this audience, 
that the Washington " Union " is laboring for my elec- 
tion to the United States Senate. This is news to 
me — not very ungrateful news either. [Turning to 
Mr. W. H. Carlin, who was on the stand:] I hope that 
Carlin will be elected to the State Senate and will vote 
for me. [Mr. Carlin shook his head.] Carlin don't 
fall in, I perceive, and I suppose he will not do much 
for me; but I am glad of all the support I can get any- 
where, if I can get it without practising any deception 
to obtain it. In respect to this large portion of Judge 
Douglas's speech, in which he tries to show that in the 



;192 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LTXCOLN". 

controversy between himself and the administration 
party he is in the right, I do not feel myself at all com- 
petent or inclined to answer him. I say to him, Give 
it to them — give it to them just all you can; and, on 
the other hand, I say to Carlin, and Jake Davis, and to 
this man Wagley up here in Hancock, Give it to Doug- 
las — just pour it into him. 

Now in regard to this matter of the Dred Scott decis- 
ion, I wish to say a word or two. After all, the judge 
will not say whether, if a decision is made holding that 
the people of the States cannot exclude slavery, he will 
support it or not. He obstinately refuses to say what 
he will do in that case. The judges of the Supreme 
Court as obstinately refused to say what they would 
do on this subject. Before this I reminded him that at 
Galesburg he said the judges had expressly declared 
the contrary, and you remember that in ray opening 
speech I told him I had the book containing that de- 
cision here, and I would thank him to lay his finger on 
the place where any such thing was said. He has oc- 
cupied his hour and a half, and he has not ventured to 
try to sustain his assertion. He never will. But he is 
desirous of knowing how we are going to reverse the 
Dred Scott decision. Judge Douglas ought to know 
how. Did not he and his political friends find a way 
to reverse the decision of that same court in favor of 
the constitutionality of the national bank? Did n't 
they find a way to do it so effectually that they have 
reversed it as completely as any decision ever was re- 
versed, so far as its practical operation is concerned? 
And, let me ask you, did n't Judge Douglas find a way 
to reverse the decision of our Supreme Court, when it 
decided that Carlin's father — old Governor Carlin — • 
had not the constitutional power to remove a secretary 
of state? Did he not appeal to the " mobs," as he calls 
them? Did he not make speeches in the lobby to show 
how villainous that decision was, and how it ought to 
be overthrown? Did he not succeed, too, in getting an 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLX. 193 

act passed by the legislature to have it overthrown? 
And did n't he himself sit down on that bench as one 
of the five added judges who were to overslough the four 
old ones — getting his name of ''judge" in that way 
and in no other? If there is a villainy in using disre- 
spect or making opposition to Supreme Court decis- 
ions, I commend it to Judge Douglas's earnest consider- 
ation, I know of no man in the State of Illinois who 
ought to know so well about how much villainy it takes 
to oppose a decision of the Supreme Court, as our 
honorable friend, Stephen A. Douglas. 

Judge Douglas also makes the declaration that I say 
the Democrats are bound by the Dred Scott decision, 
while the Republicans are not. In the sense in which 
he argues, 1 never said it; but I will tell you what 1 
have said and what I do not hesitate to repeat to-day. 
I have said that, as the Democrats believe that decision 
to be correct, and that the extension of slavery is af- 
firmed in the National Constitution, they are bound to 
support it as such ; and I will tell you here that General 
Jackson once said each man was bound to support the 
Constitution, " as he understood it." Now, Judge 
Douglas understands the Constitution according to 
the Dred Scott decision, and he is bound to support it 
as he understands it. I understand it another way, and 
therefore I am bound to support it in the way in which 
I understand it. And as Judge Douglas believes that 
decision to be correct, I will remake that argument if I 
have time to do so. Let me talk to some gentleman 
down there among you who looks me in the face. We 
will say you are a member of the territorial legislature 
and, like Judge Douglas, you believe that the right to 
take and hold slaves there is a constitutional right. 
The first thing you do is to SM-ear you will support the 
Constitution and all rights guaranteed therein; that 
you will, whenever your neighbor needs your legisla- 
tion to support his constitutionnl rights, not withhold 
that legislation. If you withhold that necessary legis- 
13 



194 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 



lation for the support of the Constitution and constitu- 
tional rights, do you not commit perjury? I ask every 
sensible man if that is not so? That is undoubtedly 
just so, say what you please. Now, that is precisely 
what Judge Douglas says — that this is a constitutional 
right. Does the judge mean to say that the territorial 
legislature in legislating may, by withholding neces- 
sary laws or by passing unfriendly laws, nullify that 
constitutional right? Does he mean to say that? 
Does he mean to ignore the proposition, so long and 
well established in law, that what you cannot do direct- 
ly, you cannot do indirectly? Does he mean that? The 
truth about the matter is this: Judge Douglas has sung 
pseans to his " popular sovereignty " doctrine until his 
Supreme Court, cooperating with him, has squatted his 
squatter sovereignty out. But he will keep up this 
species of humbuggery about squatter sovereignty. He 
has at last invented this sort of do-nothing sovereignty 
' — that the people may exclude slavery by a sort of 
" sovereignty " that is exercised by doing nothing at 
all. Is not that running his popular sovereignty down 
awfully? Has it not got down as thin as the homeo- 
pathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a 
pigeon that had starved to death? But at last, when it 
is brought to the test of close reasoning, there is not 
even that thin decoction of it left. It is a presumption 
impossible in the domain of thought. It is precisely 
no other than the putting of that most unphilosophical 
proposition, that two bodies can occupy the same space 
at the same time. The Dred Scott decision covers the 
whole ground, and while it occupies it, there is no room 
even for the shadow of a starved pigeon to occupy the 
same ground. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^95 



REPLY TO DOUGLAS AT ALTON, ILL., IN THE 
SEVENTH AND LAST JOINT DEBATE, OCT. 

15, 1858. 

[In this final speech in the series of Lincoln-Douglas debates, 
Mr. Lincoln answers, by a direct denial, Douglas's statement 
with reference to the decision in the Dred Scott case, that he 
(Lincoln) had complained that the Supreme Court had decided 
that a negro could never be a citizen of the United States. To 
saj'^ this was to misrepresent Lincoln. The latter went on, in 
his argument, to deny also that the negro was Hot included in tlie 
Declaration of Independence, since he found him covered in the 
phrase that all men are created equal. On the general question 
of slaverj^, he enforces his argument by quoting Henry Clay, in » 
remarkable passage where that statesman spoke of it as a great 
evil " which we had lamentably derived from the parent govern- 
ment and from our ancestors." On the subject of the fugitive- 
slave law, Lincoln admitted that he respected it only from its 
being in the Constitution and a right fixed there; while he 
characterized as false Douglas's charge that he (Lincoln) was in 
favor of a perfect social and political equality between the white 
and the black races. On the other hand, he expatiated on the 
wrong of slavery — that being the real issue of the time, and the 
one that had led to these Joint Debates between Douglas and 
himself]. 

Mr. Lincoln's Reply in the Alton Joint Delate. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been somewhat, in 
ray own mind, complimented by a Large portion of 
Judge Douglas's speech— I mean that portion which he 
devotes to the controversy between himself and the 
present administration. This is the seventh time Judge 
Douglas and myself have met in these joint discussions, 
and he has been gradually improving in regard to his 
war with the administration. At Quincy, day before 
yesterday, he was a little more severe upon the adminis- 
tration than I had heard him upon any occasion, and 1 
took pains to compliment him for it. I then told him 



;1^96 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOL>r. 

to " give it to them with all the power he had " ; and as 
some of them were present, I told them I would be very 
much obliged if they would give it to him in about the 
same way. I take it that he has now vastly improved 
upon the attack he made then upon the administra- 
tion. I flatter myself he has really taken my advice 
on this subject. All I can say now is to re-commend to 
him and to them what I then commended — to prosecute 
the war against one another in the most vigorous man- 
ner. I say to them again, *' Go it, husband ; go it, 
bear ! " 

There is one other thing I will mention before I 
leave this branch of the discussion — although I do not 
consider it much of my business, anyway. I refer to 
that part of the judge's remarks where he undertakes 
to involve Mr. Buchanan in an inconsistency. He reads 
something from Mr. Buchanan, from which he under- 
takes to involve him in an inconsistency; and he gets 
something of a cheer for having done so. I would only 
remind the judge that while he is very valiantly fight- 
ing for the Nebraska bill and the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise, it has been but a little while since 
he was the valiant advocate of the Missouri Compro- 
mise. I want to know if Buchanan has not as much 
right to be inconsistent as Douglas has? Has Douglas 
the exclusive right in this country of being on all sides 
of all questions? Is nobody allowed that high privilege 
but himself? Is he to have an entire monopoly on that 
subject? 

So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, 
or so far as it was about me, it is my business to pay 
some attention to it. I have heard the judge state two 
or three times what he has stated to-day — that in a 
speech which I made at Springfield, Illinois, I had in 
a very especial manner complained that the Supreme 
Court in the Dred Scott case had decided that a negro 
could never be a citizen of the United States. I have 
omitted, by some accident, heretofore to analyze this 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". I97 

statement, and it is required of me to notice it now. 
In point of fact it is untrue. I never have complained 
especially of the Dred Scott decision because it held 
that a negro could not be a citizen, and the judge is 
always wrong when he says I ever did so complain of 
it. I have the speech here, and I will thank him or any 
of his friends to show where I said that a negro should 
be a citizen, and complained especially of the Dred 
Scott decision because it declared he could not be one. 
I have done no such thing, and Judge Douglas so per- 
sistently insisting that I have done so has strongly im- 
pressed me with the belief of a predetermination on 
his part to misrepresent me. He could not get his 
foundation for insisting that I was in favor of this 
negro equality anywhere else as well as he could by 
assuming that untrue proposition. Let me tell this 
audience what is true in regard to that matter ; and the 
means by which they may correct me if I do not tell 
them truly is by a recurrence to the speech itself. I 
spoke of the Dred Scott decision in my Springfield 
speech, and I was then endeavoring to prove that the 
Dred Scott decision was a portion of a system or scheme 
to make slavery national in this country. I pointed 
out what things had been decided by the court. I 
mentioned as a fact that they had decided that a negro 
could not be a citizen — that they had done so, as I 
supposed, to deprive the negro, under all circumstances, 
of the remotest possibility of ever becoming a citizen 
and claiming the rights of a citizen of the United States 
under a certain clause of the Constitution. I stated 
that, without making any complaint of it at all. I 
then went on and stated the other points decided in 
the case, — namely, that the bringing of a negro into the 
State of Illinois, and holding him in slavery for two 
years here, was a matter in regard to which they would 
not decide whether it would make him free or not ; that 
they decided the further point that taking him into a 
United States Territory where slavery was prohibited 



198 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

by act of Congress, did not make him free, because that 
act of Congress, as they held, was unconstitutional. 
I mentioned these three things as making up the points 
decided in that case. I mentioned them in a lump 
taken in connection with the introduction of the Ne- 
braska bill, and the amendment of Chase, offered at the 
time, declaratory of the right of the i>eople of the Terri- 
tories to exclude slavery, which was voted down by the 
friends of the bill. I mentioned all these things to- 
gether, as evidence tending to prove a combination and 
conspiracy to make the institution of slavery national. 
In that connection and in that way I mentioned the 
decision on the point that a negro could not be a citi- 
zen, and in no other connection. 

Out of this. Judge Douglas builds up his beautiful 
fabrication — of my purpose to introduce a perfect 
social and political equality between the white and the 
black races. His assertion that I made an " especial 
objection " (that is his exact language) to the decision 
on this account, is untrue in point of fact. 

Now, while I am upon this subject, and as Henry 
Clay has been alluded to, I desire to place myself, in 
connection with Mr. Clay, as nearly right before this 
people as may be. I am quite aware what the judge's 
object is here by all these allusions. He knows that we 
are before an audience having strong sympathies south- 
ward by relationship, place of birth, and so on. He 
desires to place me in an extremely Abolition attitude. 
He read upon a former occasion, and alludes without 
reading to-day, to a portion of a speech which I de- 
livered in Chicago. In his quotations from that speech, 
as he has made them upon former occasions, the ex- 
tracts were taken in such a way as, I suppose, brings 
them within the definition of what is called garbling 
— taking portions of a speech which, when taken by 
themselves, do not present the entire sense of the 
speaker as expressed at the time. I propose, therefore, 
out of that same speech, to show how one portion of it 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN-. 199 

which he skipped over (taking an extract before and an 
extract after) will give a different idea, and the true 
idea 1 intended to convey. It will take me some little 
time to read it, but I believe I will occupy the time that 
way. 

You have heard him frequently allude to my con- 
troversy with him in regard to the Declaration of In- 
dependence. I confess that I have had a struggle with 
Judge Douglas on that matter, and I will try briefly 
to place myself right in regard to it on this occasion. I 
said — and it is between the extracts Judge Douglas has 
taken from this speech, and put in his published 
speeches : 



It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make 
necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a 
necessity is imposed upon a man he must submit to it. I think 
that was the condition in which we found ourselves when we 
established this government. We had slaves among us; we could 
not get our Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in 
slavery; we could not secure the good we did secure if we 
grasped for more: and having by necessity submitted to that 
much, it does not destroy the principle that is the charter of our 
liberties. Let that charter remain as our standard. 



Now I have upon all occasions declared as strongly 
as Judge Douglas against the disposition to interfere 
with the existing institution of slavery. You hear me 
read it from the same speech from which he takes 
garbled extracts for the purpose of proving upon me 
a disposition to interfere with the institution of 
slavery, and establish a perfect social and political 
equality between negroes and white people. 

Allow me, while upon this subject, briefly to present 
one other extract from a speech of mine, made more 
than a year ago, at Springfield, in discussing this very 
same question, soon after Judge Douglas took his 
ground that negroes were not included in the Declara- 
tion of Independence: 



200 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLIST. 

I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to 
include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal 
in all respects. They did not mean to say that all men were 
equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capa- 
city. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what respects 
they did consider all men created equal — equal in certain in- 
alienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not 
mean to assert the obvious unti'uth, that all were then actually 
enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it 
immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer 
such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that 
the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances 
should permit. 

They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which 
should be familiar to all and revered by all — constantly looked 
to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly at- 
tained, constantly approximated ; and thereby constantly spread- 
ing and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness 
and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere. 

There, again, are the sentiments I have expressed in 
regard to the Declaration of Independence upon a 
former occasion — sentiments which have been put in 
print and read wherever anybody cared to know what so 
humble an individual as myself chose to say in regard 
to it. 

At Galesburg the other day, I said, in answer to 
Judge Douglas, that three years ago there never had 
been a man, so far as I knew or believed, in the whole 
world, who had said that the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence did not include negroes in the term *' all men." 
I reassert it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and 
all his friends may search the whole records of the 
country, and it will be a matter of great astonishment 
to me if they shall be able to find that one human being 
three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sen- 
timent that the terra " all men " in the Declaration did 
not include the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. 
I know that more than three years ago there were men 
who, finding this assertion constantly in the way of 
their schemes to bring about the ascendency and per- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 201 

petuation of slavery, denied the truth of it. I know 
that Mr. Calhoun and all the politicians of his school 
denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it ran 
along in the mouth of some Southern men for a period 
of years, ending at last in that shameful though rather 
forcible declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon the floor 
of the United States Senate, that the Declaration of 
Independence was in that respect " a self-evident lie," 
rather than a self-evident truth. But I say, with a 
perfect knowledge of all this hawking at the Declara- 
tion without directly attacking it, that three years 
ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to 
assail it in the sneaking way of pretending to believe 
it and then asserting it did not include the negro. I 
believe the first man who ever said it was Chief Jus- 
tice Taney in the Dred Scott case, and the next to him 
was our friend, Stephen A. Douglas. And now it 
has become the catchword of the entire party. I 
would like to call upon his friends everywhere to con- 
sider how they have come in so short a time to view 
this matter in a way so entirely different from their 
former belief; to ask whether they are not being borne 
along by an irresistible current — whither, they know 
not. 

In answer to my proposition at Galesburg last week, 
I see that some man in Chicago has got up a letter 
addressed to the Chicago " Times," to show, as he pro- 
fesses, that somebody had said so before; and he signs 
himself " An Old-Line Whig," if I remember correctly. 
In the first place I would say he was not an old-linp. 
Whig. I am somewhat acquainted with old-line 
Whigs. I was with the old-line Whigs from the origin 
to the end of that party; I became pretty well ac- 
quainted with them, and I know they always had some 
sense, whatever else you could ascribe to them. I 
know there never was one who had not more sense 
than to try to show by the evidence he produces that 
some man had, prior to the time I named, said that 



202 SPEECHES OF ABRAH^H LINCOLN. 

negroes were not included in the term " all men " in 
the Declaration of Independence. What is the evi- 
dence he produces? I will bring forward his evidence, 
and let you see what he offers by way of showing that 
somebody more than three years ago had said negroes 
were not included in the Declaration. He brings for- 
ward part of a speech from Henry Clay— the part of 
the speech of Henry Clay which I used to bring for- 
ward to prove precisely the contrary. I guess we are 
surrounded to some extent to-day by the old friends 
of Mr. Clay, and they will be glad to hear anything 
from that authority. While he was in Indiana a man 
presented a petition to liberate his negroes, and he 
(Mr. Clay) made a speech in answer to it, which 1 
suppose he carefully wrote himself and caused to be 
published, I have before me an extract from that 
speech which constitutes the evidence this pretended 
" Old-Line Whig " at Chicago brought forward to show 
that Mr. Clay didn't suppose the negro was included 
in the Declaration of Independence. Hear what Mr. 
Clay said: 

And what is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana, 
to liberate the slaves under ray care in Kentucky? It is a 
general declaration in the act announcing to the world the in- 
dependence of the thirteen American colonies, that all men are 
created equal. Now, as an abstract principle, there is no doubt 
of the truth of that declaration ; and it is desirable, in the 
original construction of society, and in organized societies, to 
keep it in view as a great fundamental principle. But then I 
apprehend that in no society that ever did exist, or ever shall be 
formed, was or can the equality asserted among the members 
of the human race be practically enforced and carried out. There 
are portions, large portions, — women, minors, insane, culprits, 
transient sojourners, — that will alwaj's probably remain subject 
to the government of another portion of the community. 

That declaration, whatever may be the extent of its import, 
was made by the delegations of the thirteen States. In most of 
them slavery existed, and had long existed, and was established 
by law. It was introduced and forced upon the colonies by the 
paramount law of England. Do you believe that in making that 
declaration the States that concurred in it intended that it 
should be tortured into a virtual emancipation of all the slaves 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. £03 

within their respective limits? Would Virginia and other 
Southern States have ever united in a declaration which was to 
be interpreted into an abolition of slavery among them? Did 
any one of the thirteen colonies entertain such a design or ex- 
pectation ? To impute such a secret and unavowed purpose 
would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest band of 
patriots that ever assembled in council — a fraud upon the con- 
fedeiacy of the Revolution — a fraud upon the union of those 
States whose constitution not only recognized the lawfulness of 
slavery, but permitted the importation of slaves from Africa 
until the year 1808. 

This is the entire quotation brought forward to 
prove that somebody previous to three years ago had 
said the negro was not included in the term " all men " 
in the Declaration. How does it do so? In what way 
has it a tendency to prove that? Mr. Clay says it is 
true as an abstract principle that all men are created 
equal, but that we cannot practically apply it in all 
cases. He illustrates this by bringing forward the 
cases of females, minors, and insane persons, witsi 
whom it cannot be enforced; but he says that it is true 
as an abstract principle in the organization of society 
as well as in organized society, and it should be kept 
in view as a fundamental principle. Ixt me read a 
few words more before I add some comments of my 
own, Mr. Clay says a little further on : 

T desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institu- 
tion of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament 
that we have derived it from the parent government, and from 
our ancestors. I wish every slave in the United States was in the 
country of his ancestors. But here they are, and the question is, 
how can they be best dealt with? If a state of nature existed, 
and we were about to lay the foundations of society, no man 
would be more strongly opposed than I should be, to incorporating 
the institution of slavery among its elements. 

Xow, here in this same book — in this same speech 
— in this same extract brought forward to prove that 
Mr. Clay held that the negro was not included in the 
Declaration of Independence — we find no such state- 
ment on his part, but instead the declaration that it is 



204: SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

a great fundamental truth, which should be con- 
stantly kept in view in the organization of society 
and in societies already organized. But if I say a 
word about it; if I attempt, as Mr. Clay said all good 
men ought to do, to keep it in view ; if, in this " or- 
ganized society," I ask to have the public eye turned 
upon it; if I ask, in relation to the organization of new 
Territories, that the public eje should be turned upon 
it, — forthAvith I am vilified as you hear me to-day. 
What have I done that I have not the license of Henry 
Clay's illustrious example here in doing? Have I done 
aught that I have not his authority for, while main- 
taining that in organizing new Territories and societies, 
this fundamental principle should be regarded, and in 
organized society holding it up to the public view and 
recognizing what he recognized as the great principle 
of free government? 

And when this new principle — this new proposition 
that no human being ever thought of three years ago 
■ — is brought forward, I combat it as having an evil 
tendency, if not an evil design. I combat it as having 
a tendency to dehumanize the negro — to take away 
from him the right of ever striving to be a man. I 
combat it as being one of the thousand things con- 
stantly done in these days to prepare the public mind 
to make i^roperty, and nothing but property, of the 
negro in all the States in this Union. 

But there is a point that I wish, before leaving this 
part of the discussion, to ask attention to. I have 
read, and I repeat, the words of Henry Clay: 

I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institu- 
tion of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lamenu 
that we have derived it from the parent government, and from 
our ancestors. I wish every slave in the United States was in the 
countrj^ of his ancestors. But here they are, and the question is, 
how can they best be dealt with? If a state of nature existed, 
and we wore about to lay the foundations of society, no man 
would be more strongly opposed than I should be, to incorporating 
the institution of slavery among its elements. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. £05 

The principle upon which I have insisted in this 
canvass, is in relation to laying the foundations of 
new societies. I have never sought to apply these 
principles to the old States for the purpose of abolish- 
ing slavery in those States. It is nothing but a miser- 
able perversion of what I have said, to assume that 
I have declared Missouri, or any other slave State, 
shall emancipate her slaves. I have proposed no such 
thing. But when Mr. Clay says that in laying the 
foundations of societies in our Territories where it 
does not exist, he would be opposed to the introduction 
of slavery as an element, I insist that we have his 
warrant — his license for insisting upon the exclusion 
of that element which he declared in such strong and 
emphatic language was most hateful to him. 

Judge Douglas has again referred to a Springfield 
speech in which I said, " A house divided against it- 
self cannot stand." The judge has so often made the 
entire quotation from that speech that I can make it 
from memory. I used this language: 

We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated 
with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end 
to the slavery agitation. Under the operation of this policy, 
that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall 
have been reached and passed. " A house divided against itself 
cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure per- 
manently half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to 
fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will be- 
come all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of 
slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where 
the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it 
shall become alike lawful in all the States — old as well as new,. 
North as well as South. 

That extract, and the sentiments expressed in it, 
have been extremely offensive to Judge Douglas. He 
has warred upon them as Satan wars upon the Bible. 
His perversions upon it are endless. Here now are my 
views upon it in brief. 



206 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

I said we were now far into the fifth year since a 
policy was initiated with the avowed object and con- 
fident promise of putting an end to the slavery agi- 
tation. Is it not so? When that Nebraska bill was 
brought forward four years ago last January, was it 
not for the '' avowed object " of putting an end to the 
slavery agitation? We were to have no more agitation 
in Congress ; it was all to be banished to the Terri- 
tories. By the way, I will remark here that, as Judge 
Douglas is very fond of complimenting Mr. Crittenden 
in these days, Mr. Crittenden has said there was a 
falsehood in that whole business, for there was no 
slavery agitation at that time to allay. We were for 
a little while quiet on the troublesome thing, and that 
very allaying-plaster of Judge Douglas's stirred it up 
again. But was it not undertaken or initiated with 
the " confident promise " of putting an end to the 
slavery agitation? Surely it was. In every speech 
you heard Judge Douglas make, until he got into this 
" imbroglio," as they call it, with the administration 
about the Lecompton constitution, every speech on that 
Nebraska bill was full of his felicitations that we wer» 
just at the end of the slavery agitation. The last tip of 
the last joint of the old serpent's tail was just drawing 
out of view. But has it proved so? I have asserted 
that under that policy that agitation " has not only 
ceased, but has constantly augmented." When was 
there ever a greater agitation in Congress than last 
winter? W^hen was it as great in the country as to- 
day? 

There was a collateral object in the introduction of 
that Nebraska policy which was to clothe the people 
of the Territories with a superior degree of self-govern- 
ment, beyond what they had ever had before. The 
first object and the main one of conferring upon the 
people a higher degree of "self-government," is a 
question of fact to be determined by you in answer to 
a single question. Have you ever heard or known of 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 207 

a people anywhere on earth who had as little to do 
as, in the first instance of its use, the people of Kansas 
had with this same right of "self-government"? In 
its main policy and in its collateral object, it has been 
nothing but a living, creeping lie from tbe time of its 
introduction till to-day. 

I have intimated that I thought the agitation would 
not cease until a crisis should have been reached and 
passed. I have stated in what way I thought it woujd 
be reached and passed. I have said that it might go 
one way or the other. We might, by arresting the 
further spread of it, and placing it where the fathers 
originally placed it, put it where the public mind should 
rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate 
extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It may 
be pushed forward until it shall become alike lawful 
in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as 
South. I have said, and I repeat, my wish is that 
the further spread of it may be arrested, and that it 
may be placed vrhere the public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. 
I have expressed that as my wish. I entertain the 
opinion, upon evidence sufficient to my mind, that 
the fathers of this government placed that institution 
where the public mind did rest in the belief that it 
was in the course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask 
why they made provision that the source of slavery — 
the African slave-trade — should be cut off at the end 
of twenty years? Why did they make provision that 
in all the new territory we ov.ued at that time, slavery 
should be forever inhibited? Why stop its spread in 
one direction and cut off its source in another, if they 
did not look to its being placed in the course of ulti- 
mate extinction? 

Again, the institution of slavery is only mentioned 
in the Constitution of the United States two or three 
times, and in neither of these cases does the word 
"slavery" or "negro race" occur; but covert lau- 



208 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

guage is used each time, and for a purpose full of 
significance. What is the language in regard to the 
prohibition of the African slave-trade? It runs in 
about this way: "The migration or importation of 
such persons as any of the States now existing shall 
think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the 
Congress prior to the year 1808." 

The next allusion in the Constitution to the question 
of slavery and the black race, is on the subject of the 
basis of representation, and there the language used 
is : " Representatives and direct taxes shall be appor- 
tioned among the several States which may be in- 
cluded within this Union, according to their respective 
numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the 
whole number of three persons, including those bound 
to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians 
not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.^' 

It says " persons," not slaves, not negroes ; but this 
" three-fifths " can be applied to no other class among 
us than the negroes. 

Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of fugi- 
tive slaves, it is said : " No person held to service or 
labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 
into another, shall in consequence of any law or regu- 
lation therein be discharged from such service or labor, 
but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to 
whom such service or labor may be due." There, 
again, there is no mention of the word " negro," or of 
slavery. In all three of these places, being the only 
allusion to slavery in the instrument, covert language 
is used. Language is used not suggesting that slavery 
existed or that the black race were among us. And I 
understand the contemporaneous history of those times 
to be that covert language was used with a purpose, 
and that purpose was that in our Constitution, which 
it was hoped, and is still hoped, will endure forever, 
— when it should be read by intelligent and patriotic 
men, after the institution of slavery had passed from 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 209 

among us, — there should be nothing on the face of the 
great charter of libert}' suggesting that such a thing 
as negro slavery had ever existed among us. This is 
part of the evidence that the fathers of the government 
expected and intended the institution of slavery to 
come to an end. They expected and intended that 
it should be in the course of ultimate extinction. 
And when I say that I desire to see the further spread 
of it arrested, I only say I desire to see that done 
which the fathers have first done. When I say I 
desire to see it placed where the public mind will rest 
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction I only say I desire to see it placed where they 
placed it. It is not true that our fathers, as Judge 
Douglas assumes, made this government part slave 
and part free. Understand the sense in which he puts 
it. He assumes that slavery is a rightful thing within 
itself — was introduced by the framers of the Consti- 
tution. The exact truth is that they found the insti- 
tution existing among us, and they left it as they found 
it. But in making the government they left this insti- 
tution with many clear marks of disapprobation upon 
it. They found slavery among them, and they left it 
among them because of the difficulty — the absolute 
impossibility — of its immediate removal. And when 
Judge Douglas asks me why we cannot let it remain 
part slave and part free, as the fathers of the govern- 
ment made it, he asks a question based upon an as- 
sumption which is itself a falsehood ; and I turn upon 
him and ask him the question, when the i^olicy that the 
fathers of the government had adopted in relation to 
this element among us was the best policy in the world, 
— the only wise policy, the only i)olicy that we can 
ever safely continue upon, that will ever give us peace, 
unless this dangerous element masters us all and be- 
comes a national institution, — I turn upon him and 
ask him why he could not leave it alone. I turn and 
ask him why he was driven to the necessity of intro- 
14 



210 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

ducing a new policy in regard to it. He has himself 
said he introduced a new policy. He said so in his 
speech on the 22d of March of the present year, 1858. 
I ask him w^hy he could not let it remain where our 
fathers placed it. I ask, too, of Judge Douglas and 
his friends, why we shall not again place this insti- 
tution upon the basis on which the fathers left it? I 
ask you, when he infers that I am in favor of setting 
the free and the slave States at w^ar, when the insti- 
tution was placed in that attitude by those who made 
the Constitution, did they make any war? If we had 
no war out of it when thus placed, wherein is the 
ground of belief that we shall have war out of it if we 
return to that policy? Have w^e had any peace upon 
this matter springing from finy other basis? I main- 
tain that we have not. I have proposed nothing more 
than a return to the policy of the fathers. 

I confess, when I propose a certain measure of 
policy, it is not enough for me that I do not intend 
anything evil in the result, but it is incumbent on me 
to show that it has not a tendency to that result. I 
have met Judge Douglas in that point of view. I have 
not only made the declaration that I do not mean to 
produce a conflict between the States, but I have tried 
to show by fair reasoning, and I think I have shown 
to the minds of fair men, that I propose nothing but 
what has a most peaceful tendency. The quotation 
that I happened to make in that Springfield speech, that 
" a house divided against itself cannot stand," and 
which has proved so offensive to the judge, was part and 
parcel of the same thing. He tries to show that variety 
in the domestic institutions of the different States is 
necessary and indispensable. I do not dispute it. I 
have no controversy with Judge Douglas about 
that. I shall very readily agree with him that it would 
be foolish for us to insist upon having a cranberry law 
here, in Hlinois, where we have no cranberries, because 
they have a cranberry law in Indiana, where they have 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. QH 

cranberries. I should insist that it would be exceed- 
ingly wrong in us to deny to Virginia the right to enact 
oyster laws, where they have oysters, because we want 
no such laws here. I understand, I hope, quite as 
well as Judge Douglas, or anybody else, that the vari- 
ety in the soil and climate and face of the country, 
and consequent variety in the industrial pursuits and 
productions of a country, require systems of laws con- 
forming to this variety in the natural features of the 
country. I understand quite as well as Judge Doug- 
las, that if we here raise a barrel of flour more than 
we want, and the Louisianians raise a barrel of sugar 
more than they want, it is of mutual advantage to 
exchange. That produces commerce, brings us to- 
gether, and makes us better friends. We like one 
another the more for it. And I understand as well 
as Judge Douglas, or anybody else, that these mutual 
accommodations are the cements which bind together 
the different parts of this Union; that instead of being 
a thing to " divide the house " — figuratively expressing 
the Union — they tend to sustain it; they are the props 
of the house tending always to hold it up. 

But when 1 have admitted all this, I ask if there is 
any parallel between these things and this institution 
of slavery? I do not see that there is any parallel at 
all between them. Consider it. When have we had 
any difficulty or quarrel amongst ourselves about the 
cranberry laws of Indiana, or the oyster laws of Vir- 
ginia, or the pine-lumber laws of Maine, or the fact 
that Louisiana produces sugar, and Illinois flour? 
When have we had any quarrels over these things? 
When have we had perfect peace in regard to this 
thing which I say is an element of discord in this 
Union? We have sometimes had peace, but when was 
it? It was when the institution of slavery remained 
quiet where it was. We have' had difficulty and tur- 
moil whenever it has made a struggle to spread itself 
where it was not. I ask, then, if experience does not 



212 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

speak in thunder-tones, telling us that the policy which 
has given peace to the country heretofore, being re- 
turned to, gives the greatest promise of peace again. 
You may say, and Judge Douglas has intimated the 
same thing, that all this difficulty in regard to the 
institution of slavery is the mere agitation of office- 
seekers ^and ambitious northern politicians. He 
thinks we want to get " his place," I suppose. I agree 
that there are office-seekers amongst us. The Bible 
says somewhere that we are desperately selfish. I 
think we would have discovered that fact without the 
Bible. I do not claim that I am any less so than the 
average of men, but I do claim that I am not more 
selfish than Judge Douglas. 

But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation 
we have in regard to this institution of slavery springs 
from office-seeking — from the mere ambition of poli- 
ticians? Is that the truth? How many times have 
we had danger from this question? Go back to the 
day of the Missouri Compromise. Go back to the 
nullification question, at the bottom of which lay 
this same slavery question. Go back to the time of 
the annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles 
that led to the compromise of 1850. You will find that 
every time, with the single exception of the nullifica- 
tion question, they sprang from an endeavor to spread 
this institution. There never was a party in the his- 
tory of this country, and there probably never will be, 
of sufficient strength to disturb the general peace of 
the country. Parties themselves may be divided and 
quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends not beyond 
the parties themselves. But does not this question 
make a disturbance outside of political circles? Does 
it not enter into the churches and rend them asunder? 
What divided the great Methodist Church into two 
parts. North and South? What has raised this con- 
stant disturbance in every Presbyterian general assem- 
bly that meets? What disturbed the Unitarian 



Speeches of Abraham Lincoln. 213 

Church in this very citj two years ago? What has 
jarred and shaken the great American Tract Society 
recently — not yet splitting it, but sure to divide it in the 
end? Is it not this same mighty, deep-seated power 
that somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting 
and stirring them up in every avenue of society — in 
politicc, in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the 
manifold relations of life? Is this the work of poli- 
ticians? Is that irresistible power, which for fifty 
years has shaken the government and agitated the 
people, to be stilled and subdued by pretending that 
it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not 
to talk about it? If you will get everybody else to 
stop talking about it, I assure you I will quit before 
they have half done so. But where is the philosophy 
or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet 
that disturbing element in our society which has dis- 
turbed us for more than half a century, which has 
been the only serious danger that has threatened our 
institutions — I say, where is the philosophy or the 
statesmanship based on the assumption that we are 
to quit talking about it, and that the public mind is 
all at once to cease being agitated by it? Yet this is 
the policy here in the North that Douglas is advo- 
eating — that we are to care nothing about it ! I ask 
you if it is not a false philosophy? Is it not a false 
statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system 
of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the 
very thing that everybody does care the most about — a 
thing which all experience has shown we care a very 
great deal about? 

The judge alludes very often in the course of his re- 
marks to the exclusive right which the States have 
to decide the whole thing for themselves, I agree with 
him very readily that the different States have that 
right. He is but fighting a man of straw when he 
assumes that I am contending against the right of the 
States to do as they please about it. Our controversy 



214 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

with him is in regard to the new Territories. We 
agree that when the States come in as States they have 
the right and the power to do as they please. We have 
no power ns citizens of the free f?tates, or in onr 
federal capacity as members of the Federal Union 
through the General Government, to disturb slavery 
in the States where it exists. We profess constantly 
that we have no more inclination than belief in the 
power of the government to disturb it; yet we are 
driven constantly to defend ourselves from the as- 
sumption that we are warring upon the rights of the 
States. What I insist upon is, that the new Terri- 
tories shall be kept free from it while in the territorial 
condition. Judge Douglas assumes that we have no 
interest in them — that we have no right whatever to 
interfere. I think we have some interest. I think that 
as white men we have. Do we not wish for an outlet 
for our surplus population, if I may so express myself? 
Do we not feel an interest in getting to that outlet 
with such institutions as we would like to have prevail 
there? If you go to the Territory opposed to slavery, 
and another man comes upon the same ground with 
his slave, upon the assumption that the things are 
equal, it turns out that he has the equal right all his 
way, and you have no part of it your way. If he goes 
in and makes it a slave Territory, and by consequence 
a slave State, is it not time that those who desire 
to have it a free State were on equal ground? Let 
me suggest it in a different way. How many Demo- 
crats are there about here [" A thousand "] who have 
left slave States and come into the free State of Illi- 
nois to get rid of the institution of slavery? [Another 
voice : " A thousand and one."] I reckon there are a 
thousand and one. I will ask you, if the policy you 
are now advocating had prevailed when this country 
was in a territorial condition, where would you have 
gone to get rid of it? Where would you have found 
your free State or Territory to go to? And when 



SrEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 915 

hereafter, for any cause, the people in this place shall 
desire to find new homes, if they wish to be rid of the 
institution, where will they find the place to go to? 

Now, irrespective of the moral aspect of this question 
as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving 
a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories 
being in such a condition that white men may find 
a home — may find some spot where they can better 
their condition — where they can settle upon new soil, 
and better their condition in life. I am in favor of 
this not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) 
for our own people who are born amongst us, but as 
an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world 
over — in which Hans, and Baptiste, and Patrick, and 
all other men from all the world, may find new homes 
and better their condition in life. 

I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as 
well state again, what I understand to be the real 
issue of this controversy between Judge Douglas and 
myself. On the point of my wanting to make war 
between the free and the slave States, there has been 
no issue between us. So, too, when he assumes that 
I am in favor of introducing a perfect social and poli- 
tical equality between the white and black races. 
These are false issues, upon which Judge Douglas has 
tried to force the controversy. There is no foundation 
in truth for the charge that I maintain either of these 
propositions. The real issue in this controversy — the 
one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment on the 
part of one class that looks upon the institution of 
slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not 
look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that con- 
templates the institution of slavery in this country 
as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican party. 
It is the sentiment around which all their actions, 
all their arguments, circle; from which all their propo- 
sitions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral 
social, and political wrong; and while they contem- 



216. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



plate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for 
its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of 
getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all 
the constitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet 
having a due regard for these, they desire a policy in 
regard to it that looks to its not creating any more 
danger. They insist that it, as far as may be, be 
treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating 
it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow 
no larger. They also desire a policy that looks to a 
peaceful end of slavery some time, as being a wrong. 
These are the views they entertain in regard to it, as 
I understand them ; and all their sentiments, all their 
arguments and propositions, are brought within this 
range. I have said, and I repeat it here, that if there 
be a man amongst us who does not think that the insti- 
tution of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects 
of which I have spoken, he is misplaced, and ought 
not to be with us. And if there be a man amongst 
us who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard 
its actual presence among us and the difficulty of 
getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, and 
to disregard the constitutional obligations thrown 
about it, that man is misplaced if he is on our platform. 
We disclaim sympathy with him in practical action. 
He is not placed properly with us. 

On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limit- 
ing its spread, let me say a word. Has anything ever 
threatened the existence of this Union save and except 
this very institution of slavery? What is it that we 
hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and 
prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty 
and prosperity save and except this institution of 
slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to im- 
prove the condition of things by enlarging slaver}^ — 
by spreading it out and making it bigger? You may 
have a wen or cancer upon your person, and not be able 
to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 217 

no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your 
whole body. That is no proper way of treating what 
you regard as a wrong. You see this peaceful way of 
dealing with it as a wrong — restricting the spread of 
it, and not allowing it to go into new countries where 
it has not already existed. That is the peaceful way, 
the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers 
themselves set us the example. 

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment 
which treats it as not being wrong. That is the Demo- 
cratic sentiment of this day. I do not mean to say that 
every man who stands within that range positively 
asserts that it is right. That class will include all who 
positively assert that it is right, and all who, like 
Judge Douglas, treat it as indifferent, and do not 
say it is either right or wrong. These two classes 
of men fall within the general class of those who do 
not look upon it as a wrong. And if there be among 
you anybody who supposes that he, as a Democrat, 
can consider himself " as much opposed to slavery as 
anybody," I would like to reason with him. You 
never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you 
consider as a wrong, do jou deal with as you deal with 
that? Perhaps you say it is wrong, but your leader 
never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it 
is wrong. Although you pretend to say so yourself, 
you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. 
You must not say anything about it in the free States, 
because it is not here. You must not say anything 
about it in the slave States, because it is there. You 
must not say anything about it in the pulpit, because 
that is religion, and has nothing to do with it. You 
must not say anything about it in jjolitics, because 
that will disturb the security of " my place." There 
is no place to talk about it as being a wrong, although 
you say yourself it is a wrong. But finally you will 
screw yourself up to the belief that if tlie people of the 
slave States should adopt a system of gradual emanci- 



218 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

pation on the slavery question, you would be in favor 
of it. You would be in favor of it! You say that is 
getting it in the right place, and you would be glad tt» 
see it succeed. But jou are deceiving yourself. You 
all know that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down 
there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce that system 
in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could 
for the system of gradual emancipation which you pre- 
tend you would be glad to see succeed. Now I will 
bring you to the test. After a hard fight, they were 
beaten ; and when the news came over here, you threw 
up your hats and hurrahed for Democracy, More 
than that, take all the argument made in favor of the 
system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes 
the idea that there is anything wrong in the institution 
of slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy 
carefully exclude it. Even here to-day you heard 
Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a 
wish that it might some time come to an end. Al- 
though Henry Clay could say he wished every slave 
in the United States was in the country of his an- 
cestors, I am denounced by those pretending to respect 
Henry Clay, for uttering a wish that it might some 
time, in some peaceful way, come to an end. 

The Democratic policy in regard to that institution 
will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, 
of the least degree of wrong about it. Try it by some 
of Judge Douglas's arguments. He says he '' don't 
care whether it is voted up or voted down " in the 
Territories. I do not care myself, in dealing with that 
expression, whether it is intended to be expressive 
of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only 
of the national policy he desires to have established. 
It is alike valuable for my purpose. Any man can 
say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, 
but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in 
it; because no man can logically say he don't care 
whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He 



SPEECHES OS' ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 219 

may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing is 
voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice 
between a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends 
that whatever community wants slaves has a right to 
have them. So thej' have if it is not a wrong. But 
if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to 
do wrong, fie says that, upon the score of equality, 
slaves should be allowed to go into a new Territory 
like other property. This is strictly logical if there is 
no difference between it and other property. If it 
and other property are equal, his argument is entirely 
logical. But if 3'ou insist that one is wrong and the 
other right, there is no use to institute a comparison 
between right and wrong. You may turn over every- 
thing in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, 
whether in the shape it takes on the statute-book, in 
the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the 
shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in 
short maxim-like arguments — it everywhere carefully 
excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it. 
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will 
continue in this country Mhen these poor tongues of 
Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the 
eternal struggle between these two principles — right 
and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two 
principles that have stood face to face from the begin- 
ning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The 
one is the common right of humanity, and the other the 
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in what- 
ever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit thai 
says, " You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll 
eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether 
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the peo- 
ple of his own nation and live by the fruit of their 
labor, or from one race of men as an apology for en- 
slaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. 
I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I 
reexpress it here to Judge Douglas — that he looks to 



220 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

no end of the institution of slavery. That will help 
the people to see where the struggle really is. It will 
hereafter place with us all men who really do wish the 
wrong may have an end. And whenever we can get 
rid of the fog which obscures the real question, — when 
we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow 
a policy looking to its perpetuation, — v/e can get out 
from among them that class of men and bring them to 
the side of those who treat it as a wrong. Then there 
will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its 
" ultimate extinction." Whenever the issue can be 
distinctly made, and all extraneous matter thrown out, 
so that men can fairly see the real difference between 
the parties, this controversy will soon be settled, and 
it will be done peaceably too. There will be no war, 
no violence. It will be placed again where the wisest 
and best men of the world placed it. Brooks of South 
Carolina once declared that when this Constitution 
was framed, its framers did not look to the institution 
existing until this day. When he said this, I think he 
stated a fact that is fully borne out by the history of 
the times. But he also said they were better and wiser 
men than the men of these days; yet the men of these 
days had experience which they had not, and by the 
invention of the cotton-gin it became a necessity in 
this country that slavery should be perpetual. I now 
say that, willingly or unwillingly, puri)Osely or with- 
out purpose. Judge Douglas has been the most promi- 
nent instrument in changing the position of the insti- 
tution of slavery, — which the fathers of the government 
expected to come to an end ere this, — and putting it 
upon Brooks's cotton-gin basis — placing it where he 
openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an 
end of it. 

I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ 
it in saying something about this argument Judge 
Douglas uses, while he sustains the Dred Scott decision, 
that the people of the Territories can still somehow 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLX. 221 

exclude slavery. The first thing I ask attention to is 
the fact that Judge Douglas constantly said, before 
the decision, that whether they could or not, was a 
question for the Supreme Court. But after the court 
has made the decision, he virtually says it is not a 
question for the Supreme Court, but for the people. 
And how is it he tells us they can exclude it? He says 
it needs " police regulations," and that admits of 
" unfriendly legislation." Although it is a right es- 
tablished by the Constitution of the United States to 
take a slave into a Territory of the United States and 
hold him as property, yet unless the territorial legis- 
lature will give friendly legislation, and, more espec- 
ially, if they adopt unfriendly legislation, they can 
practically exclude him. Now, without meeting this 
proposition as a matter of fact, I pass to consider the 
real constitutional obligation. Let me take the gentle- 
man who looks me in the face before me, and let us sup- 
pose that he is a member of the territorial legislature. 
The first thing he will do will be to swear that he will 
support the Constitution of the United States. Ilis 
neighbor by his side in the Territory has slaves and 
needs territorial legislation to enable him to enjoy that 
constitutional right. Can he withhold the legislation 
which his neighbor needs for the enjoyment of a right 
which is fixed in his favor in the Constitution of the 
United States which he has sworn to support? Can he 
withhold it without violating his oath? And more 
especially, can he pass unfriendly legislation to vio- 
late his oath? Why, this is a monstrous sort of talk 
about the Constitution of the United States! There 
has never been as outlandish or lawless a doctrine from 
the mouth of any respectable man on earth. I do not 
believe it is a constitutional right to hold slaves in a 
Territory of the United States. I believe the decision 
was improperly made, and I go for reversing it. Judge 
Douglas is furious against those who go for reversing 
a decision. But he is for legislating it out of all force 



222 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

while the law itself stands. I repeat that there has 
never been so monstrous a doctrine uttered from the 
mouth of a respectable man. 

I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe 
that the people of the Southern States are entitled to 
a congressional fugitive-slave law ; that is a right fixed 
in the Constitution. But it cannot be made available 
to them without congressional legislation. In the 
judge's language, it is a '' barren right," which needs 
legislation before it can become efiQcient and valuable 
to the persons to whom it is guaranteed. And, as the 
right is constitutional, I agree that the legislation 
shall be granted to it. Not that we like the institu- 
tion of slavery; we profess to have no taste for run- 
ning and catching negroes — at least, I profess no 
taste for that job at all. Why then do I yield support 
to a fugitive-slave law? Because I do not understand 
that the Constitution, which guarantees that right, 
can be supported without it. And if I believe that the 
right to hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed 
in the Constitution with the right to reclaim fugitives, 
I should be bound to give it the legislation necessary 
to support it. I say that no man can deny his obliga- 
tion to give the necessary legislation to support slavery 
in a Territory, who believes it is a constitutional right 
to have it there. No man can, who does not give the 
Abolitionist an argument to deny the obligation en- 
joined by the Constitution to enact a fugitive-slave 
law. Try it now. It is the strongest Abolition argu- 
ment ever made. I say, if that Dred Scott decision is 
correct, then the right to hold slaves in a Territory is 
equally a constitutional right with the right of a slave- 
holder to have his runaway returned. No one can 
show the distinction between them. The one is express*, 
so that we cannot deny it ; the other is construed to be 
in the Constitution, so that he who believes the decision 
to be correct believes in the right. And the man who 
argues that by unfriendly legislation, in spite of that 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



223 



constitutional right, slavery may be driven from the 
Territories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument by 
which Abolitionists may deny the obligation to return 
fugitives, and claim the power to pass laws unfriendly 
to the right of the slaveholder to reclaim his fugitive. I 
do not know how such an argument may strike a popu- 
lar assembly like this, but I defy anybody to go before 
a body of men whose minds are educated to estimating 
evidence and reasoning, and show that there is an iota 
of difference between the constitutional right to re- 
claim a fugitive, and the constitutional right to hold 
a slave, in a Territory, provided this Dred Scott deci- 
sion is correct. I defy any man to make an argument 
that will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a 
slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in a Terri- 
tory, that will not equally, in all its length, breadth, 
and thickness, furnish an argument for nullifying the 
fugitive-slave law. Why, there is not such an Aboli- 
tionist in the nation as Douglas, after all. 



224 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



SPEECH AT CHICAGO ON THE NIGHT OF THE 
MUNICIPAL ELECTION, MARCH 1, 1859. 

[Here Mr. Lincoln brings forward once more the wrong of 
slavery and the danger to the nation, as well as to the Republican 
cause, in tampering with the evil institution or in closing one's 
eyes to the fact of its menacing existence. On the question of 
its perpetuation and spreading into the new Territories and 
States, he speaks strongly and earnestly, urging its limitation in 
area and resistance to it as a giant wrong, and with the fixed 
idea that some day it must and will come to an end. In this, 
the speaker, by intuition, seems to foreshadow, under Provi- 
dence, the great and momentous act of which Lincoln, later on, 
was to be the instrument — of liberating the slave, though 
calamitous and trying days were to intervene ere emancipation 
finally came about]. 

I UNDERSTAND that jou havc to-daj rallied around 
your principles, and they have again triumphed in the 
city of Chicago. I am exceedingly happy to meet you 
under such cheering auspices on this occasion — the first 
on which I have appeared before an audience since the 
campaign of last year. It is unsuitable to enter into a 
lengthy discourse, as is quite apparent, at a moment 
like this. I shall therefore detain you only a very short 
while. 

It gives me peculiar pleasure to find an opportunity 
under such favorable circumstances to return my 
thanks for the gallant support that the Republicans of 
the city of Chicago and of the State gave to the cause 
in which we were all engaged in the late momentous 
struggle in Illinois. . . . 

I wish now to aad a word that has a bearing on the 
future. The Republican principle, the profound cen- 
tral truth that slavery is wrong and ought to be dealt 
with as a vrrong, — though we are always to remember 
the fact of its actual esistence amongst us and faith- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 225 

fully observe all the constitutional guarantees, — the 
unalterable principle never for a moment to be lost 
sight of, that it is a wrong and ought to be dealt with 
as such, cannot advance at all upon Judge Douglas's 
ground; that there is a portion of the country in which 
slavery must always exist; that he does not care 
whether it is voted up or voted down, as it is simply a 
question of dollars and cents. Whenever in any com- 
promise, or arrangement, or combination that may 
promise some temporary advantage we are led upon 
that ground, then and there the great living principle 
Opon which we have organized as a party is surienderod. 
The proposition now^ in our minds that this thing 
is wrong being once driven out and surrendered, then 
the institution of slavery necessarily becomes national. 
One or two words more of what I did not think of 
when I rose. Suppose it is true that the Almighty has 
drawn a line across this continent, on the south side 
of which part of the people will hold the rest as slaves; 
that the Almighty ordered this; that it is right, un- 
changeably right, that men ought there to he held as 
slaves; that their fellow-men will always have the right 
to hold them as slaves. I ask you, this once admitted, 
how can you believe that it is not right for us, or for 
them coming here, to hold slaves on this other side of 
the line? Once we come to acknowledge that it is 
right, that it is the law of the Eternal Being for slavery 
to exist on one side of that line, have we any sure 
ground to object to slaves being held on the other side? 
Once admit the position that a man rightfully holds 
another man as property on one side of the line, and 
you must, w^hen it suits his convenience to come to the 
other side, admit that he has the same right to hold 
his property there. Once admit Judge Douglas's prop- 
osition, and we must all finally give way. Although 
we may not bring ourselves to the idea that it is to our 
interest to have slaves in this Northern country, we 
shall soon bring ourselves to admit that while we may 
15 



226 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

not want them, if any one else does, he has the moral 
right to have them. Step by step, south of the judge'^ 
moral climate line in the States, in the Territories 
everywhere, and then in all the States — it is thus that 
Judge Douglas would lead us inevitably to the nation- 
alization of slavery. Whether by his doctrine of squat- 
ter sovereignty, or by the ground taken by him in his 
recent speeches in Memphis and through the South, — 
that wherever the climate makes it the interest of the 
inhabitants to encourage slave property they will pass? 
a slave code, — whether it is covertly nationalized by 
congressional legislation, or by Dred Scott decision, or 
by the sophistical and misleading doctrine he has last 
advanced, the same goal is inevitably reached by the 
one or the other device. It is only traveling to the 
same place by different roads. 

It is in this direction lies all the danger that now 
exists to the great Republican cause. I take it that 
so far as concerns forcibly establishing slavery in the 
Territories by congressional legislation, or by virtue 
of the Dred Scott decision, that day has passed. Our 
only serious danger is that we shall be led upon this 
ground of Judge Douglas, on the delusive assumption 
tliat it is a good way of whipping our opponents, when 
in fact it is a way that leads straight to final sur- 
render. The Republican party should not dally with 
Judge Douglas when it knows where his proposition 
and his leadership would take us, nor be disposed to 
listen to it because it was best somewhere else to sup- 
port somebody occupying his ground. That is no just 
reason why we ought to go over to Judge Douglas, as 
we were called upon to do last year. Never forget that 
we have before us this whole matter of the right or 
wrong of slavery in this Union, though the immediate 
question is as to its spreading out into new Territories 
and States. 

I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject 
of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist ; 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LTNCOLX. 227 

and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end 
peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I 
say that the spread and strengthening and perpetua- 
tion of it is an entirely different proposition. There we 
should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as 
a wrong, with the fixed idea tliat it must and will come 
to an end. If we do not allow ourselves to be allured 
from the strict path of our duty by such a device 
as shifting our ground and throwing us into the rear 
of a leader who denies our first principle, denies that 
there is an absolute wrong in the institution of slavery, 
then the future of the Republican cause is safe, and 
victory is assured. You Republicans of Illinois have 
deliberately taken your ground ; you have heard the 
whole subject discussed again and again ; you have 
stated your faith in platforms laid down in a State con- 
vention and in a national convention ; you have heard 
and talked over and considered it until you are now 
all of opinion that you are on a ground of unques- 
tionable right. All you have to do is to keep the faith, 
to remain steadfast to the right, to stand by your ban- 
ner. Nothing should lead you to leave your guns. 
Stand together, ready, with match in hand. Allow 
nothing to turn you to the right or to the left. Re- 
member how long you have been in setting out on the 
true course; how long you have been in getting your 
neighbors to understand and believe as you now do. 
Stand by your principles, stand by your guns, and vic- 
tory, complete and permanent, is sure at the last. 



228 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



SPEECH AT CINCINNATI, OHIO, SEP. 17, 1859. 

[This address of Mr. Lincoln, at Cincinnati, following upon a 
visit of Judge S. A. Douglas to that city, may be said to be a 
sort of aftermath of the notable Lincoln-Douglas Debates in 
Illinois, for it reviews a good deal of the ground gone over and 
comment upon many of the subjects discussed in the historic 
tilts with the Illinois " little Giant " Senator. The reiteration of 
these topics, aside from their fresh setting, will however not be 
unwelcome, it is thought, to readers of this volume, or to those 
who wish to learn how the public mind was at the time 
educated and influenced in regard to the great question of 
slavery and the agitation for its limitation and ultimate sup- 
pression, now about to come forward for final settlement at the 
assize of the nation]. 

My Fellow-citizens of the State of Ohio: This is the 
first time in my life that I have appeared before an 
audience in so great a city as this. I therefore — 
though I am no longer a young man — make this ap- 
pearance under some degree of embarrassment. But 
I have found that when one is embarrassed, usually 
the shortest way to get through with it is to quit talk- 
ing or thinking about it, and go at something else. 

I understand that you have had recently with you 
my very distinguished friend. Judge Douglas, of Illi- 
nois, and I understand, without having had an oppor- 
tunity (not greatly sought, to be sure) of seeing a re- 
port of the speech that he made here, that he did 
me the honor to mention my humble name. I suppose 
that he did so for the purpose of making some objection 
to some sentiment at some time expressed by me. I 
should expect, it is true, that Judge Douglas had re- 
minded you, or informed you, if you had never before 
heard it, that I had once in my life declared it as my 
opinion that this government cannot " endure per- 
manently half slave and half free; that a house divided 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 229 

against itself cannot stand," and, as I had expressed 
it, 1 did not expect the house to fall ; that I did not 
expect the Union to be dissolved, but that I did expect 
it would cease to be divided; that it would become 
all one thing or all the other; that either the opposi- 
tion of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, 
and place it where the public mind would rest in the 
belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction, 
or the friends of slavery will push it forward until it 
becomes alike lawful in all the States, old or new, free 
as well as slave. I did, fifteen months ago, express that 
opinion, and upon many occasions Judge Douglas has 
denounced it, and has greatly, intentionally or unin- 
tentionally, misrepresented my purpose in the expres- 
sion of that opinion. 

I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, 
that he did so here. 1 presume that he alluded also 
to that opinion in different language, having been ex- 
pressed at a subsequent time by Governor Seward, of 
New York, and that he took the two in a lump and de- 
nounced them; that he tried to point out that there 
was something couched in this opinion which led to the 
making of an entire uniformity of the local institu- 
tions of the various States of the Union, in utter dis- 
regard of the different States, which in their nature 
would seem to require a variety of institutions, and a 
variety of laws conforming to the differences in the 
nature of the different States. 

Not only so; I presume he insisted that this was a 
declaration of war between the free and slave States — 
that it was the sounding to the onset of continual war 
between the different States, the slave and free States. 

This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Doug- 
las on, I believe, the 9th of July, 1858, in Chicago, in 
my hearing. On the next evening, I made some reply 
to it. I informed him that many of the inferences he 
drew from that expression of mine were altogether 
foreign to any purpose entertained by me, and in so 



230 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 

far as he should ascribe these inferences to me, as my 
purpose, he was entirely mistaken; and in so far 
as he might argue that whatever might be my purpose, 
actions, conforming to mj views, would lead to these 
results, he might argue and establish if he could; but, 
so far as purposes were concerned, he was totally mis- 
taken as to me. 

AYhen I made that reply to him, I told him, on the 
question of declaring war between the different States 
of the Union, that I had not said I did not expect any 
peace upon this question until slavery was exter- 
minated; that I had only said I expected peace when 
that institution was put where the public mind should 
rest in the belief that it was in course of ultimate ex- 
tinction ; that I believed, from the organization of our 
government until a very recent period of time, the in- 
stitution had been placed and continued upon such a 
basis; that we had had comparative peace upon that 
question through a portion of that period of time, only 
because the public mind rested in that belief in re- 
gard to it, and that when we returned to that position 
in relation to that matter, I supposed we should again 
have peace as we previously had. I assured him, as I 
now assure you, that I neither then had, nor have, 
nor ever had, any purpose in any way of interfering 
with the institution of slavery where it exists. 1 believe 
we have no power, under the Constitution of the United 
States, or rather under the form of government under 
which we live, to interfere with the institution of 
slavery, or any other of the institutions of our sister 
States, be they free or slave States. I declared then, 
and I now re-declare, that I have as little inclination 
to interfere with the institution of slavery where it 
now exists, through the instrumentality of the General 
Government, or any other instrumentality, as I believe 
we have no power to do so. I accidentally used this ex- 
pression : I had no purpose of entering into the slave 
States to disturb the institution of slavery. So, upon 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIN'COLN. 031 

the first occasion that Judge Douglas got an oppor- 
tunity to reply to me, he passed by the whole body of 
what I had said upon that subject, and seized upon the 
particular expression of mine, that I had no purpose 
of entering into the slave States to disturb the institu- 
tion of slavery. ''Oh, no," said he; *' he [Lincoln] 
won't enter into the slave States to disturb the institu- 
tion of slaver}'; he is too prudent a man to do such a 
thing as that; he only means that he will go on to the 
line between the free and slave States, and shoot over 
at them. This is all he means to do. He means to do 
them all the harm he can, to disturb them all he can, in 
such a way as to keep his own hide in perfect safety." 

Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that 
was either a very dignified or very logical argument; 
but so it was, and I had to get along with it as well as I 
could. 

It has occurred to me here to-night that if I ever do 
shoot over the line at the people on the other side of 
the line, into a slave State, and propose to do so keep- 
ing my skin safe, that I have now about the best chanct; 
I shall ever have. I should not wonder if there are some 
Kentuckians about this audience; we are close to Ken- 
tucky ; and whether that be so or not, we are on elevated 
ground, and by speaking distinctly I should not wonder 
if some of the Kentuckians would hear me on the other 
side of the river. For that reason I propose to address 
a portion of what I have to say to the Kentuckians. 

I say, then, in the first place, to the Kentuckians, 
that I am what they call, as I understand it, a " Black 
Republican." I think slavery is wrong, morally and 
politically. I desire that it should be no further spread 
in these United States, and I should not object if it 
should gradually terminate in the whole Union. While 
I say this for myself. I say to you Kentuckians that 
I understand you differ radically with me upon this 
proposition; that you believe slavery is a good thing; 
that slavery is right ; that it ought to be extended and 



232 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN", 

perpetuated in this Union. Now, there being this 
broad difference between us, I do not pretend, in ad- 
dressing myself to you Kentuekians, to attempt pros- 
elyting you; that would be a vain effort. I do not 
enter upon it. I only propose to try to show you that 
you ought to nominate for the next presidency, at 
Charleston, my distinguished friend, Judge Douglas. 
In all that there is no real difference between you and 
him ; I understand he is as sincerely for you, and more 
wisely for you, than you are for yourselves. 1 will try 
to demonstrate that proposition. Understand now, I 
say that I believe he is as sincerely for you, and more 
wisely for you, than you are for yourselves. 

What do you want more than anything else to make 
successful your views of slavery — to advance the out- 
spread of it, and to secure and perpetuate the nation- 
ality of it? What do you want more than anything 
else? What is needed absolutely? What is indispen- 
sable to you? Why, if I may be allowed to answer the 
question, it is to retain a hold upon the North — it is 
to retain support and strength from the free States. If 
you can get this support and strength from the free 
States, you can succeed. If you do not get this support 
and this strength from the free States, you are in the 
minority, and you are beaten at once. 

If that proposition be admitted, — and it is unde- 
niable, — then the next thing I say to you is, that Doug- 
las of all the men in this nation is the only man that 
affords you any hold upon the free States; that no 
other man can give you any strength in the free States. 
This being so, if you doubt the other branch of the prop- 
osition, whether he is for you, — whether he is really 
for you, as I have expressed it, — I propose asking your 
attention for a while to a few facts. 

The issue between you and me, understand, is that I 
think slavery is wrong, and ought not to be outspread, 
and you think it is right, and ought to be extended and 
perpetuated. I now proceed to try to show to you that 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 033 

Douglas is as sincerely for you, and more wisely for 
you, than you are for yourselves. 

In the first place, we know that in a government like 
this, a government of the people, where the voice of all 
the men of the country, substantially, enters into the 
administration of the government, what lies at the bot- 
tom of all of it is public opinion. I lay down the prop- 
osition that Judge Douglas is not only the man that 
promises you in advance a hold upon the North, and 
support in the North, but that he constantly molds 
public opinion to your ends; that in every possible 
way he can, he molds the public opinion of the North 
to your ends; and if there are a few things in which 
he seems to be against you, — a few things which he 
says that appear to be against you, and a few that he 
forbears to say which you would like to have him say, 
— you ought to remember that the saying of the one, or 
the forbearing to say the other would lose his hold 
upon the North, and, by consequence, would lose his 
capacity to serve you. 

Upon this subject of molding public opinion, I call 
your attention to the fact — for a well-established fact 
it is — that the judge never says your institution of 
slavery is wrong: he never says it is right, to be sure, 
but he never says it is wrong. There is not a public 
man in the United States, I believe, with the exception 
of Senator Douglas, who has not, at some time in his 
life, declared his opinion whether the thing is right or 
wrong; but Senator Douglas never declares it is wrong. 
He leaves himself at perfect liberty to do all in your 
favor which he would be hindered from doing if he 
were to declare the thing to be wrong. On the contrary, 
he takes all the chances that he has for inveigling the 
sentiment of the North, opposed to slavery, into your 
support, by never saying it is right. This you ought 
to set down to his credit. You ought to give him full 
credit for this much, little though it be in comparison 
to the whole which he does for you. 



234 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Some other things I will ask your attention to. He 
said upon the floor of the United States Senate, and he 
has repeated it, as I understand, a great many times, 
that he does not care whether slavery is " voted up or 
voted down." This again shows you, or ought to show 
you, if you would reason upon it, that he does not be- 
lieve it to be wrong; for a man may say, when he sees 
nothing wrong in a thing, that he does not care whether 
it be voted up or voted down ; but no man can logically 
say that he cares not whether a thing goes up or goes 
down which appears to him to be wrong. You there- 
fore have a demonstration in this, that to Judge Doug- 
las's mind your favorite institution, which you desire 
to have spread out and made perpetual, is no wrong. 

Another thing he tells you, in a speech made at Mem- 
phis, in Tennessee, shortly after the canvass in Illinois, 
last year. He there distinctly told the people that there 
was a " line drawn by the Almighty across this con- 
tinent, on the one side of which the soil must always be 
cultivated by slaves " ; that he did not pretend to know 
exactly where that line was, but that there was such a 
line. I want to ask your attention to that proposition 
again — that there is one portion of this continent where 
the Almighty has designed the soil shall always be 
cultivated by slaves ; that its being cultivated by slaves 
at that place is right; that it has the direct sympathy 
and authority of the Almighty. Whenever you can get 
these Northern audiences to adopt the opinion that 
slavery is right on the other side of the Ohio; whenever 
you can get them, in pursuance of Douglas's views, to 
adopt that sentiment, they will vevj readily make the 
other argument, which is perfectly logical, that that 
which is right on that side of the Ohio cannot be wrong 
on this, and that if you have that property on that side 
of the Ohio, under the seal and stamp of the Almighty, 
when by any means it escapes over here, it is wrong 
to have constitutions and laws " to devil " you about it. 
So Douglas is molding the public opinion of the North, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



235 



first to say that the thing is right in your State over 
the Ohio River, and hence to say that that which is 
right there is not wrong here, and that all laws and 
constitutions here, recognizing it as being wrong, are 
themselves wrong, and ought to be repealed and abro- 
gated. He will tell you, men of Ohio, that if you 
choose here to have laws against slavery, it is in con- 
formity to the idea that your climate is not suited to 
it; that your climate is not suited to slave labor, and 
therefore you have constitutions and laws against it. 

Let us attend to that argument for a little while, and 
see if it be sound. You do not raise sugar-cane (except 
the new-fashioned sugar-cane, and you won't raise that 
long), but they do raise it in Louisiana. You don't 
raise it in Ohio because you can't raise it profitably, 
because the climate don't suit it. They do raise it 
in Louisiana because there it is profitable. Now Doug- 
las will tell you that is precisely the slavery question; 
that they do have slaves there because they are profit- 
able, and you don't have them here because they are 
not profitable. If that is so, then it leads to dealing 
with the one precisely as with the other. Is there, 
then, anything in the constitution or laws of Ohio 
against raising sugar-cane? Have you found it neces- 
sary to put any such provision in your law? Surely 
not! No man desires to raise sugar-cane in Ohio; but 
if any man did desire to do so, you would say it was 
a tyrannical law that forbids his doing so; and when- 
ever you shall agree with Douglas, whenever your minds 
are brought to adopt his argument, as surely you will 
have reached the conclusion that although slavery is 
not profitable in Ohio, if any man want it, it is wrong 
to him not to let him have it. 

In this matter Judge Douglas is preparing the public 
mind for you of Kentucky, to make perpetual that good 
thing in your estimation, about which you and I diff'er. 

In this connection let me ask your attention to an- 
other thing. I believe it is safe to assert that, five 



236 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

years ago, no living man had expressed the opinion that 
the negro had no share in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. Let me state that again: Five years ago no 
living man had expressed the opinion that the negro 
had no share in the Declaration of Independence. If 
there is in this large audience any man who ever knew 
of that opinion being put upon paper as much as five 
years ago, I will be obliged to him now, or at a subse- 
quent time, to show it. 

If that be true, I wish you then to note the next fact 
— that within the space of five years Senator Douglas, 
in the argument of this question, has got his entire 
party, so far as I know, without exception, to join in 
saying that the negro has no share in the Declaration 
of Independence. If there be now in all these United 
States one Douglas man that does not say this, I have 
been unable upon any occasion to scare him up. Now, 
if none of you said this five years ago, and all of you 
say it now, that is a matter that you Kentuckians 
ought to note. That is a vast change in the Northern 
public sentiment upon that question. 

Of what tendency is that change? The tendency of 
that change is to bring the public mind to the conclu- 
sion that when -men are spoken of, the negro is not 
meant; that when negroes are spoken of, brutes alone 
are contemplated. That change in public sentiment 
has already degraded the black man, in the estimation 
of Douglas and his followers, from the condition of a 
man of some sort, and assigned him to the condition of 
a brute. Now you Kentuckians ought to give Douglas 
credit for this. That is the largest possible stride 
that can be made in regard to the perpetuation of your 
good thing of slavery. 

In Kentucky, perhaps, — in many of the slave States 
certainly, — you are trying to establish the rightfulness 
of slavery by reference to the Bible. You are trying 
to show that slavery existed in the Bible times by 
divine ordinance. Now Douglas is wiser than you for 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHA^I LINCOLN. £37 

your own benefit, upon that subject. Douglas knows 
that whenever jou establish that slavery was right by 
the Bible, it will occur that that slavery was the slavery 
of the white man, — of men without reference to color, 
— and lie knows very Avell that you may entertain that 
idea in Kentucky as much as you please, but you will 
never win any Northern support upon it. He makes 
a wiser argument for you ; he makes the argument that 
the slavery of the black man, the slavery of the man 
who has a skin of a different color from your own, is 
right. He thereby brings to your support Northern 
voters who could not for a moment be brought by your 
own argument of the Bible-right of slavery. Will you 
not give him credit for that? Will you not say that 
in this matter he is more wisely for you than you are 
for yourselves? 

Now, having established with his entire party this 
doctrine, — having been entirely successful in that 
branch of his efforts in your behalf, — he is ready for 
another. 

At this same meeting at Memphis, he declared that 
in all contests between the negro and the white man, 
he was for the white man, but that in all questions be- 
tween the negro and the crocodile he was for the negro. 
He did not make that declaration accidentally at Mem- 
phis. He made it a great many times in the canvass 
in niinois last year (though I don't know that it was 
reported in any of his speeches there; but he frequently 
made it). I believe he repeated it at Columbus, and 
I should not wonder if he repeated it here. It is, then, 
a deliberate way of expressing himself upon that sub- 
ject. It is a matter of mature deliberation with him 
thus to express himself upon that point of his case. 
It therefore requires some deliberate attention. 

The first inference seems to be that if you do not 
enslave the negro you are wronging the white man in 
some way or other; and that whoever is opposed to the 
negro being enslaved is, in some way or other, against 



238 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the white man. Is not that a falsehood? If there was 
a necessary conflict between the white man and the 
negro, I should be for the white man as much as Judge 
Douglas; but I say there is no such necessary conflict. 
I say that there is room enough for us all to be free, 
and that it not onl}" does not wrong the white man that 
the negro should be free, but it positively wrongs the 
mass of the white men that the negro should be en- 
slaved; that the mass of white men are really injured 
by the eflects of slave-labor in the vicinity of the fields 
of their own labor. 

But I do not desire to dwell upon this branch of the 
question more than to say that this assumption of his 
is false, and I do hope that that fallacy will not 
long prevail in the minds of intelligent white men. At 
all events, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for it. 
It is for 3'our benefit it is made. 

The other branch of it is, that in a struggle between 
the negro and the crocodile, he is for the negro. Well, 
I don't know that there is any struggle between the 
negro and the crocodile, either. I suppose that if a 
crocodile (or, as we old Ohio River boatmen used to 
call them, alligators) should come across a white man, 
he would kill him if he could, and so he would a negro. 
But what, at last, is this proposition? I believe that 
it is a sort of proposition in proportion, which may be 
stated thus : " As the negro is to the white man, so is 
the crocodile to the negro; and as the negro may right- 
fully treat the crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the 
white man may rightfully treat the negro as a beast 
or reptile." That is really the point of all that argu- 
ment of his. 

Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, 
you ought to thank Judge Douglas for having put 
that in a much more taking way than any of yourselves 
have done. 

Again, Douglas's great principle, "popular sove- 
reignty," as he calls it, gives you by natural conse- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. £39 

quence the revival of the slave-trade whenever you 
want it. If vou are disposed to question this, listen 
awhile, consider awhile, what I shall advance in sup- 
port of that proposition. 

He savs that it is the sacred right of the man who 
goes into the Territories to have slaver}- if he wants it. 
Grant that for argument's sake. Is it not the sacred 
right of the man who don't go there, equally to buy 
slaves in Africa, if he wants them? Can you point 
out the difference? The man who goes into the Ter- 
ritories of Kansas and Nebraska, or any other new 
Territory, with the sacred right of taking a slave there 
which belongs to him, would certainly have no more 
right to take one there than I would who own no slave, 
but who would desire to buy one and take him there. 
You will not say — you, the friends of Judge Douglas — 
but that the man who does not own a slave, has an 
equal right to buy one and take him to the Territory as 
the other does? 

I sa}- that Douglas's popular sovereignty, establishing 
his sacred right in the people, if you please, if carried 
to its logical conclusion, gives equally the sacred right 
to the people of the States or the Territories themselves 
to buy slaves, wherever they can buy them cheapest; 
and if any man can show a distinction, I should like 
to hear him try it. If any man can show how the 
people of Kansas have a better right to slaves because 
they want them, than the people of Georgia have to 
buy them in Africa, I want him to do it. I think It 
cannot be done. If it is " popular sovereignty " for the 
people to have slaves because they want them, it is pop- 
ular sovereignty for them to buy them in Africa, be- 
cause they desire to do so. 

I know that Douglas has recently made a little effort 
— not seeming to notice that he had a different theory 
— has made an effort to get rid of that. He has written 
a letter, addressed to somebody, I believe, who resides 
in Iowa, declaring his opposition to the repeal of the 



240 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

laws that prohibit the African slave-trade. He bases 
his opposition to such repeal upon the ground that 
these laws are themselves one of the compromises of the 
Constitution of the United States. Now it would be 
very interesting to see Judge Douglas, or any of his 
friends, turn to the Constitution of the United States 
and point out that compromise, to show where there is 
any compromise in the Constitution, or provision in 
the Constitution, expressed or implied, by which the 
administrators of that Constitution are under any obli- 
gation to repeal the African slave-trade. I know, or at 
least I think 1 know, that the framers of that Constitu- 
tion did expect that the African slave-trade would be 
abolished at the end of twenty years, to which time 
their prohibition against its being abolished extended. 
1 think there is abundant contemporaneous history to 
show that the framers of the Constitution expected it 
to be abolished. But while they so expected, they gave 
nothing for that expectation, and they put no provision 
in the Constitution requiring it should be so abolished. 
The migration or importation of such persons as the 
States shall see fit to admit shall not be prohibited, 
but a certain tax might be levied upon such importa- 
tion. But w'hat was to be done after that time? 
The Constitution is as silent about that as it is silent, 
personally, about myself. There is absolutely nothing 
in it about that subject — there is only the expectation 
of the framers of the Constitution that the slave-trade 
would be abolished at the end of that time, and they 
expected it would be abolished, owing to public senti- 
ment, before that time, and they put that provision in, 
in order that it should not be abolished before that 
time, for reasons which I suppose they thought to be 
sound ones, but which I will not now try to enumerate 
before you. 

But while they expected the slave-trade would be 
abolished at that time, they expected that the spread 
of slavery into the new Territories should also be re- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 241 

stricted. It is as easy to prove that the fraraers of the 
Constitution of the United States expected that slavery 
should be prohibited from extending into the new Ter- 
ritories, as it is to prove that it was expected that the 
slave-trade should be abolished. Both these things 
were expected. One was no more expected than the 
other, and one was no more a compromise of the Con- 
stitution than the other. There was nothing said in the 
Constitution in regard to the spread of slavery into 
the Territories. I grant that, but there was something 
very important said about it by the same generation 
of men in the adoption of the old ordinance of '87, 
through the influence of which you here in Ohio, our 
neighbors in Indiana, we in Illinois, our neighbors in 
Michigan and Wisconsin, are happy, prosperous, teem- 
ing millions of free men. That generation of men, 
though not to the full extent members of the conven- 
tion that framed the Constitution, were to some extent 
members of that convention, holding seats at the same 
time in one body and the other, so that if there was any 
compromise on either of these subjects, the strong 
evidence is that that compromise was in favor of the 
restriction of slavery from the new Territories. 

But Douglas says that he is unalterably opposed to 
the repeal of those laws; because, in his view, it is a 
compromise of the Constitution. You Kentuckians, no 
doubt, are somevviiat offended with that ! You ought 
not to be! You ought to be patient! You ought to 
know that if he said less than that, he would lose the 
power of "lugging" the Northern States to your sup- 
port. Really, what you would push him to do would 
take from him his entire power to serve you. And you 
ought to remember how long, by precedent. Judge 
Douglas holds himself obliged to stick by compromises. 
You ought to remember that by the time you yourselves 
think you are ready to inaugurate measures for the 
revival of the African slave-trade, that sufficient time 
will have arrived, by precedent, for Judge Douglas to 
16 



242 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

break through that compromise. He says now nothing 
more strong than he said in 1849 when he declared in 
favor of the Missouri Compromise — that precisely four 
years and a quarter after he declared that compromise 
to be a sacred thing, which " no ruthless hand would 
ever dare to touch," he, himself, brought forward the 
measure ruthlessly to destroy it. By a mere calcula- 
tion of time it will only be four years more until he 
is ready to take back his profession about the sacred- 
ness of the compromise abolishing the slave-trade. 
Precisely as soon as you are ready to have his services 
in that direction, by fair calculation, you may be sure 
of having them. 

But you remember and set down to Judge Douglas's 
debt, or discredit, that he, last year, said the people of 
Territories can, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, 
exclude your slaves from those Territories; that he de- 
clared by " unfriendly legislation " the extension of 
your property into the new Territories may be cut off 
in the teeth of that decision of the Supreme Court of 
the United States. 

He assumed that position at Freeport, on the 27th 
of August, 1858. He said that the people of the Ter- 
ritories can exclude slavery, in so many words. You 
ought, however, to bear in mind that he has never said 
it since. You may hunt in every speech that he has 
since made, and he has never used that expression once. 
He has never seemed to notice that he is stating his 
views differently from what he did then ; but by some 
sort of accident, he has always really stated it differ- 
ently. He has always since then declared that " the 
Constitution does not carry slavery into the Territories 
of the United States beyond the power of the people 
legally to control it, as other property." Now there is 
a difference in the language used upon that former 
occasion and in this latter day. There may or may 
not be a difference in the meaning, but it is worth while 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 243 

considering whether there is not also a difference in 
meaning. 

What is it to exclude? Why, it is to drive it out. 
It is in some way to put it out of the Territory. It 
is to force it across the line, or change its character, 
so that as property it is out of existence. But what 
is the controlling of it "as other property"? Is con- 
trolling it as other property the same thing as destroy- 
ing it, or driving it away? I should think not. I 
should think the controlling of it as other property 
would be just about what you in Kentucky should 
want. I understanding the controlling of property 
means the controlling of it for the benefit of the owner 
of it. While I have no doubt the Supreme Court of 
the United States would say " God speed " to any of 
the territorial legislatures that should thus control 
slave property, they would sing quite a different tune 
if by the pretense of controlling it they were to under- 
take to pass laws which virtually excluded it, and that 
upon a very well known principle to all lawyers, that 
what a legislature cannot directly do, it cannot do by 
indirection; that as the legislature has not the power 
to drive slaves out, they have no power by indirection, 
by tax, or by imposing burdens in any way on that 
property, to effect the same end, and that any attempt 
to do so would be held by the Dred Scott court uncon- 
stitutional. 

Douglas is not willing to stand by his first proposi- 
tion that they can exclude it, because we have seen 
that that proposition amounts to nothing more or less 
than the naked absurdity that you may lawfully drive 
out that which has a lawful right to remain. He ad- 
mitted at first that the slave might be lawfully taken 
into the Territories under the Constitution of the 
United States, and yet asserted that he might be law- 
fully driven out. That being the proposition, it is the 
absurdity I have stated. He is not willing to stand 
in the face of that direct, naked, and impudent absur- 



244 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCO'T.N'. 

dity ; lie has, therefore, modified his language into that 
of being " controlled as other property." 

The Kentuckians don't like this in Douglas ! I will 
tell you where it will go. He now swears by the court. 
He was once a leading man in Illinois to break down 
a court because it had made a decision he did not 
like. But he now not only swears by the court, the 
courts having got to working for you, but he denounces 
all men that do not swear by the courts as unpatriotic, 
as bad citizens. When one of these acts of unfriendly 
legislation shall impose such heavy burdens as to, in 
effect, destroy property in slaves in a Territory, and 
show plainly enough that there can be no mistake in 
the purpose of the legislature to make them so burden- 
some, this same Supreme Court will decide that law 
to be unconstitutional, and he will be ready to say for 
your benefit, " I swear by the court ; I give it up " ; 
and while that is going on he has been getting all his 
men to swear by the courts, and to give it up with him. 
In this again he serves you faithfully, and, as I say, 
more wisely than you serve yourselves. 

Again, I have alluded in the beginning of these re- 
marks to the fact that Judge Douglas has made great 
complaint of my having expressed the opinion that this 
government " cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free." He has complained of Seward for 
using different language, and declaring that there is 
an " irrepressible conflict " between the principles of 
free and slave labor. [A voice : " He says it is not 
original with Seward. That is original with Lin- 
coln."] I will attend to that immediately, sir. Since 
that time, Hickman, of Pennsylvania, expressed the 
same sentiment. He has never denounced Mr. Hick- 
man. Why? There is a little chance, notwithstand- 
ing that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may 
yet be a Douglas man. That is the difference. It is 
not unpatriotic to hold that opinion^ if a man is a 
Douglas man. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 245 

But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled 
to the enviable or unenviable distinction of having 
first expressed that idea. That same idea was ex- 
pressed by the Richmond ''Enquirer" in Virginia, in 
1S5G, quite two years before it was expressed by the 
first of us. And while Douglas was pluming himself 
that in his conflict with my humble self, last year, he 
had " squelched out " that fatal heresy, as he delighted 
to call it, and had suggested that if he only had had a 
chance to be in New York and meet Seward he would 
have '' squelched " it there also, it never occurred to him 
to breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think that 
you can discover that Douglas ever talked of going to 
Virginia to " squelch " out that idea there. No. More 
than that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought 
to Washington City and made the editor of the par 
excellence Douglas paper after making use of that ex- 
pression which, in us, is so unpatriotic and heretical. 
From all this my Kentucky friends may see that this 
opinion is heretical in his view only when it is ex- 
pressed by men suspected of a desire that the country 
shall all become free, and not when expressed by those 
fairly known to entertain the desire that the whole 
country shall become slave. When expressed by that 
class of men, it is in no wise offensive to him. In this 
again, my friends of Kentucky, you have Judge Doug- 
las with you. 

There is another reason why you Southern people 
ought to nominate Douglas at your convention at 
Charleston. That reason is the wonderful cai)acity of 
the man ; the power he has of doing what would seem to 
be impossible. Let me call your attention to one of 
these apparently impossible things. 

Douglas had three or four very distinguished men, 
of the most extreme antislavery views of any men in 
the Republican party, expressing their desire for his 
reelection to the Senate last year. That would, of it- 
self, have seemed to be a little wonderful, but that 



246 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LmCOLN. 

wonder is heightened when we see that Wise, of Vir- 
ginia, a man exactly opposed to them, a man who be- 
lieves in the divine right of slavery, was also express- 
ing his desire that Douglas should be reelected; that 
another man that may be said to be kindred to Wise, 
Mr. Breckinridge, the Vice-President, and of your own 
State, was also agreeing with the antislavery men in 
the North that Douglas ought to be reelected. Still, 
to heighten the wonder, a senator from Kentucky, 
whom I have always loved with an affection as tender 
and endearing as I have ever loved any man, who was 
opposed to the antislavery men for reasons which 
seemed sufficient to him, and equally opposed to Wise 
and Breckinridge, was writing letters into Illinois to 
secure the reelection of Douglas. Now that all these 
conflicting elements should be brought, while at dag- 
gers' points with one another, to support him, is a 
feat that is worthy for you to note and consider. It 
is quite probable that each of these classes of men 
thought, by the reelection of Douglas, their peculiar 
views would gain something: it is probable that the 
antislavery men thought their views would gain some- 
thing; that Wise and Breckinridge thought so too, as 
regards their opinions; that Mr. Crittenden thought 
that his views would gain something, although he was 
opposed to both these other men. It is probable that 
each and all of them thought that they were using 
Douglas, and it is yet an unsolved problem whether he 
was not using them all. If he was, then it is for you 
to consider whether that power to perform wonders is 
one for you lightly to throw away. 

There is one other thing that I will say to you in this 
relation. It is but my opinion ; I give it to you with- 
out a fee. It is my opinion that it is for you to take 
him or be defeated; and that if you do take him 
you may be beaten. You will surely be beaten if you 
do not take him. We, the Republicans and others 
forming the opposition of the country, intend to " stand 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 247 

by our guns," to be patient and firm, and in the long 
run to beat you whether you take him or not. We 
know that before we fairly beat you, we have to beat 
you both together. We know that " you are all of a 
feather," and that we have to beat you altogether, and 
we expect to do it. We don't intend to be very im- 
patient about it. We mean to be as deliberate and 
calm about it as it is possible to be, but as firm and 
resolved as it is possible for men to be. When we do 
as we say, beat you, you perhaps want to know what 
we will do with you. 

I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak 
for the opposition, what we mean to do with you, 
we mean to treat you, as near as we possibly can, as 
^Vashington, Jefferson, and Madison treated you. We 
mean to leave you alone, and in no way to interfere 
with your institution; to abide by all and every com- 
jiromise of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming 
back to the original proposition, to treat you, so far as 
degenerated men (if we have degenerated) may, accord- 
ing to the example of those noble fathers — Washington, 
Jefferson, and Madison. We mean to remember that 
you are as good as we; that there is no difference be- 
tween us other than the difference of circumstances. 
We mean to recognize and bear in mind always that 
you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other 
people, or as we claim to have, and treat you accord- 
ingly. We mean to marry your girls when we have a 
chance— the white ones, I mean, and I have the honor 
to inform you that I once did have a chance in that 
way. 

I have told you what we mean to do. I want to 
know, now, when that thing takes place, what do you 
mean to do? I often hear it intimated that you mean 
to divide the Union whenever a Republican or anything 
like it is elected President of the United States. [A 
voice: "That is so."] "That is so," one of them 
saj-s; I wonder if he is a Kentuckian? [A voice: 



248 SPEECHES OF ABRAHA^^I LIXCOL^^T. 

" He is a Douglas man."] Well, then, I want to know 
what you are going to do with your half of it? Are 
you going to split the Ohio down through, and push 
your half off a piece? Or are you going to keep it 
right alongside of us outrageous fellows? Or are you 
going to build up a wall some way between your 
country and ours, by which that movable property of 
yours can't come over here any more, to the danger of 
your losing it? Do you think you can better yourselves 
on that subject by leaving us here under no obligation 
whatever to return those specimens of your movable 
property that come hither? You have divided the 
Union because we would not do right with you, as you 
think, upon that subject ; when we cease to be under 
obligations to do anything for you, how much better 
off do you think you will be? Will you make war upon 
us and kill us all? Why, gentlemen, I think you are 
as gallant and as brave men as live; that you can fight 
as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as any other 
people living; that you have shown yourselves capable 
of this upon various occasions; but man for man, you 
are not better than we are, and there are not so many 
of you as there are of us. You will never make much 
of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in num- 
bers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we 
were equal it would likely be a drawn battle; but being 
inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempt- 
ing to master us. 

But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or 
longer, to the Kentuckians than I ought to have done, 
inasmuch as I have said that whatever course you 
take, we intend in the end to beat you. I propose to 
address a few remarks to our friends, by way of dis- 
cussing with them the best means of keeping that 
promise that I have in good faith made. 

It may appear a little episodical for me to mention 
the topic of which I shall speak now. It is a favorite 
proposition of Douglas's that the interference of the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 049 

Genera] Government, through the ordinance of '87, or 
through any other act of the General Government, 
never has made, nor ever can make, a free State; that 
the ordinance of '87 did not make free States of Ohio, 
Indiana, or Illinois; that these States are free upon 
his "great principle" of popular sovereignty, because 
the people of those several States have chosen to make 
them so. At Columbus, and probably here, he under- 
took to compliment the people that they themselves 
liad made the State of Ohio free, and that the ordinance 
of '87 was not entitled in any degree to divide the 
honor with him. I have no doubt that the people of 
the State of Ohio did make her free according to their 
own will and judgment; but let the facts be remem- 
bered. 

In 1802, I believe, it was you who made your first 
constitution, with the clause prohibiting slavery, and 
you did it, I suppose, very nearly unanimously; but 
you should bear in mind that you — speaking of you 
as one people — that you did so unembarrassed by the 
actual presence of the institution amongst you; that 
you made it a free State, not with the embarrassment 
upon you of already having among you many slaves, 
w^hich, if they had been here, and you had sought to 
make a free State, you would not know what to do 
with. If they had been among you, embarrassing dif- 
ficulties, most probably, would have induced you to 
tolerate a slave Constitution instead of a free one; as, 
indeed, these very difficulties have constrained every 
people on this continent who have adopted slavery. 

Pray, what was it that made you free? What kept 
you free? Did you not find your country free when 
you came to decide that Ohio should be a free State? 
It is important to inquire by what reason you found 
it so. Let us take an illustration between the States 
of Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky is separated by 
this river Ohio, not a mile wide. A portion of Ken- 
tucky, by reason of the course of the Ohio, is further 



250 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOL^f. 

north than this portion of Ohio in which we now stand. 
Kentucky is entirely covered with slavery — Ohio is 
entirely free from it. What made that difference? 
Was it climate? No! A portion of Kentucky was 
further north than this portion of Ohio. Was it soil? 
No! There is nothing in the soil of the one more 
favorable to slave-labor than the other. It was not 
climate or soil that caused one side of the line to be 
entirely covered with slavery and the other side free 
of it. What was it? Study over it. Tell us, if you 
can, in all the range of conjecture, if there be anything 
you can conceive of that made that difference, other 
than that there was no law of any sort keeping it out 
of Kentucky, while the ordinance of '87 kept it out of 
Ohio. If there is any other reason than this, I confess 
that it is wholly beyond my povrer to conceive of it. 
This, then, I offer to combat the idea that that ordin- 
ance has never made an^- State free. 

I don't stop at this illustration. I come to the State 
of Indiana ; and what I have said as between Kentucky 
and Ohio, I repeat as between Indiana and Kentucky; 
it is equally applicable. One additional argument is 
applicable also to Indiana. In her territorial condi- 
tion she more than once petitioned Congress to abro- 
gate the ordinance entirely, or at least so far as to 
suspend its operation for a time, in order that they 
should exercise the " popular sovereignty " of having 
slaves if they wanted them. The men then controlling 
the General Government, imitating the men of the 
Revolution, refused Indiana that privilage. And so 
we have the evidence that Indiana supposed she could 
have slaves, if it were not for that ordinance ; that she 
besought Congress to put that barrier out of the way ; 
that Congress refused to do so, and it all ended at last 
in Indiana being a free State. Tell me not then that 
the ordinance of '87 had nothing to do with making 
Indiana a free State, when we find some men chafing 
against and only restrained by that barrier. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 25J 

Come down again to our State of Illinois. The 
great Northwest Territory, including Ohio, Indi- 
ana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, was acquired 
first, I believe, by the British government, in part, at 
least, from the French. Before the establishment 01 
our independence, it became a part of Virginia, en- 
abling Virginia afterward to transfer it to the General 
Government. There were French settlements in what 
is now Illinois, and at the same time there were French 
settlements in what is now Missouri — in the tract of 
country that was not purchased till about 1803. In 
these French settlements negro slavery had existed for 
many years — perhaps more than a hundred, if not as 
much as tv/o hundred, years — at Kaskaskia, in Illinois, 
and at St. Genevieve, or Cape Girardeau, perhaps, in 
Missouri. The number of slaves was not very great, 
but there was about the same number in each place. 
They were there when we acquired the Territory. 
There was no effort made to break up the relation of 
master and slave, and even the ordinance of '87 was 
not so enforced as to destroy that slavery in Illinois; 
nor did the ordinance apply to Missouri at all. 

What T want to ask your attention to. at this point, 
is that Illinois and Missouri came into the Union about 
the same time, Illinois in the latter part of 1818, and 
Missouri, after a struggle, I believe, some time in 1820. 
They had been filling up with American people about 
the same period of time, their progress enabling them 
to come into the Union about the same. At the end 
of that ten years, in which they had been so preparing 
(for it was about that period of time), the number of 
slaves in Illinois had actually decreased; while in 
Missouri, beginning with very few, at the end of that 
ten years there were about ten thousand. This being so, 
and it being remembered that Missouri and Illinois are, 
to a certain extent, in the same parallel of latitude, — ■ 
that the northern half of Missouri and the southern 
half of Illinois are in the same parallel of latitude, — so 



252 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that climate would have the same effect upon one as 
upon the other ; and that in the soil there is no material 
difference so far as bears upon the question of slavery 
being settled upon one or the other; there being none 
of those natural causes to produce a difference in filling 
them, and yet there being a broad difference in their 
filling up, we are led again to inquire what was the 
cause of that difference. 

It is most natural to say that in Missouri there was 
no law to keep that country from filling up with slaves, 
while in Illinois there was the ordinance of '87. The 
ordinance being there, slavery decreased during that ten 
years — the ordinance not being in the other, it increased 
from a few to ten thousand. Can anybody doubt the 
reason of the difference? 

I think all these facts most abundantly prove that 
my friend Judge Douglas's proposition, that the ordin- 
ance of '87, or the national restriction of slavery, never 
had a tendency to make a free State, is a fallacy — a 
proposition without the shadow or substance of truth 
about it, 

Douglas sometimes says that all the State (and it is 
part of that same proposition I have been discussing < 
that have become free, have become so upon his " great 
principle"; that the State of Illinois itself came into 
the Union as a slave State, and that the people, upon 
the " great principle " of popular sovereignty, have 
since made it a free State. Allow me but a little 
while to state to you what facts there are to justify 
him in saying that Illinois came into the Union as a 
slave State. 

I have mentioned to you that there were a few old 
French slaves there. They numbered, I think, one or 
two hundred. Besides that, there had been a terri- 
torial law for indenturing black persons. Under that 
law, in violation of the ordinance of '87, but without 
any enforcement of the ordinance to overthrow the 
system, there had been a small number of slaves intro- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 25:1 

(luced as indentured persons. Owing to this, the clause 
for the prohibition of slavery was slightly modified. 
Instead of running like yours, that neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude, except for crime, of which the 
party shall have been dul}' convicted, should exist in 
the State, they said that neither slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude should thereafter be introduced, and that 
the children of indentured servants should be born 
free; and nothing was said about the few old French 
slaves. Out of this fact, that the clause for prohibit- 
ing slavery was modified because of the actual pres- 
ence of it, Douglas asserts again and again that Illi- 
nois came into the Union as a slave State. How far 
the facts sustain the conclusion that he draws, it is for 
intelligent and impartial men to decide. I leave it 
with you, with these remarks, worthy of being remem- 
bered, that that little thing, those few indentured ser- 
vants being there, was of itself sufficient to modify a 
constitution made by a people ardently desiring to 
have a free constitution ; showing the power of the 
actual presence of the institution of slavery to prevent 
any people, however anxious to make a free State, from 
making it perfectly so. I have been detaining you 
longer perhaps than I ought to do. 

I am in some doubt whether to introduce another 
topic upon which I could talk awhile. [Cries of " Go 
on," and '' Give us it."] It is this then — Douglas's 
popular sovereignty, as a principle, is simply this: If 
one man chooses to make a slave of another man, 
neither that man nor anybody else has a right to object. 
Apply it to government, as he seeks to apply it, and 
it is this: If. in a new Territory, into which a few 
people are beginning to enter for the purpose of mak- 
ing their homes, they choose to either exclude slavery 
from their limits, or to establish it there, however one 
or the other may affect the persons to be enslaved, or 
the infinitely greater number of persons who are after- 
ward to inhabit that Territory, or the other members 



254 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

of the family of communities, of which they are but 
an incipient member, or the general head of the family 
of States as parent of all — however their action may 
affect one or the other of these, there is no power or 
right to interfere. That is Douglas's popular sover- 
eignty applied. Now I think that there is a real popu- 
lar sovereignty in the world. I think a definition of 
popular sovereignty, in the abstract, would be about 
this — that each man shall do precisely as he pleases with 
himself, and with all those things which exclusively 
concern him. Applied in government, this principle 
would be, that a general government shall do all those 
things which pertain to it, and all the local governments 
shall do precisely as they please in respect to those 
matters which exclusively concern them. 

Douglas looks upon slavery as so insignificant that 
the people must decide that question for themselves, 
and yet they are not fit to decide who shall be their 
governor, judge, or secretary, or who shall be any of 
their officers. These are vast national matters, in his 
estimation ; but the little matter in his estimation is 
that of planting slavery there. That is purely of local 
interest, which nobody should be allowed to say a word 
about. 

Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if 
not all, human comforts and necessities are drawn. 
There is a difference in opinion about the elements of 
labor in society. Some men assume that there is a 
necessary connection between capital and labor, and 
that connection draws within it the whole of the labor 
of the community. They assume that nobody works 
unless capital excites them to work. They begin next 
to consider what is the best way. They say there are 
but two ways — one is to hire men and to allure them to 
labor b}' their consent; the other is to buy the men and 
drive them to it, and that is slavery. Having assumed 
that, they proceed to discuss the question of whether 
the laborers themselves are better off in the condition 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 255 

of slaves or of hired laborers, and they usually decide 
that they are better off in the condition of slaves. 

In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a 
mistake. That there is a certain relation between capi- 
tal and labor, I admit. That it does exist, and riglit- 
fully exists, I think is true. That men who are indus- 
trious and sober and honest in the pursuit of their 
own interests should after a while accumulate capital, 
and after that should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, 
and also if they should choose, when they have accu- 
mulated it, to use it to save themselves from actual 
labor, and hire other people to labor for them, is right. 
In doing so, they do not wrong the man they employ, 
for they find men who have not their own land to work 
upon, or shops to work in, and who are benefited by 
working for others — hired laborers, receiving their cap- 
ital for it. Thus a few men that own capital hire a 
few others, and these establish the relation of capital 
and labor rightfully— a relation of which I make no 
complaint. But I insist that that relation, after all, 
does not embrace more than one-eighth of the labor of 
the country. 

[The speaker proceeded to argue that the hired la- 
borer, with his ability to become an employer, must 
have every precedence over him who labors under the 
inducement of force. He continued :] 

I have taken upon myself, in the name of some of 
you, to say that we expect upon these principles to 
ultimately beat them. In order to do so, I think we 
want and must have a national policy in regard to the 
institution of slavery that acknowledges and deals with 
that institution as being wrong. Whoever desires the 
prevention of the spread of slavery and the nationali- 
zation of that institution, yields all when he yields 
to any policy that either recognizes slavery as being 
right, or as being an indifferent thing. Nothing will 
make you successful but setting up a policy which shall 
treat the thing as being wrong. When I say this, I do 



256 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLN". 

not mean to say that this General Government is 
charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all 
the wrongs in the world; but I do think that it is 
charged with preventing and redressing all wrongs 
which are wrongs to itself. This government is ex- 
pressly charged with the duty of providing for the 
general welfare. We believe that the spreading out 
and perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs 
the general welfare. We believe — nay, we know — that 
that is the only thing that has ever threatened the per- 
petuity of tlie Union itself. The only thing which has 
ever menaced the destruction of the government under 
which we live, is this very thing. To repress this thing, 
we think, is providing for the general welfare. Our 
friends in Kentucky differ from us. We need not make 
our argument for them ; but we who think it is wrong 
in all its relations, or in some of them at least, must 
decide as to our own actions, and our own course, upon 
our own judgment. 

I say that we must not interfere with the institution 
of slavery in the States where it exists, because the 
Constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does 
not require us to do so. We must not withhold an effi- 
cient fugitive-slave law, because the Constitution re- 
quires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a 
law. But we must prevent the outspreading of the 
institution, because neither the Constitution nor gen- 
eral welfare requires us to extend it. We must prevent 
the revival of the xVfrican slave-trade, and the enacting 
by Congress of a territorial slave-code. We must pre- 
vent each of these things being done by either con- 
gresses or courts. The people of these United States 
are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts, 
not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the 
men vrho pervert the Constitution. 

To do these things we must employ instrumentalities- 
We must hold conventions; we must adopt platforms, 
if we conform to ordinary custom; we must nominate 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 257 

candidates; and we must carry elections. In all these 
things, I think that we ought to keep in view our real 
purpose, and in none do anything that stands adverse 
to our purpose. If we shall adopt a platform that 
fails to recognize or express our purpose, or elect a man 
that declares himself inimical to our purpose, we not 
only take nothing by our success, but we tacitly admit 
that we act upon no other principle than a desire to 
have " the loaves and fishes," by which, in the end, our 
apparent success is really an injury to us. 

I know that it is very desirable with me, as with 
everybody else, that all the elements of the Opposition 
shall unite in the next presidential election, and in all 
future time. I am anxious that that should be, but 
there are things seriously to be considered in relation 
to that matter. If the terms can be arranged, I am in 
favor of the union. But suppose we shall take up some 
man, and put him upon one end or the other of the 
ticket, who declares himself against us in regard to the 
prevention of the spread of slavery, who turns up his 
nose and says he is tired of hearing anything more 
about it, who is more against us than against the 
enemy — what will be the issue? Why, he will get no 
slave States after all — he has tried that already until 
being beat is the rule for him. If we nominate him 
upon that ground, he will not carry a slave State, and 
not only so, but that portion of our men who are high 
strung upon the principle we really fight for will not 
go for him, and he won't get a single electoral vote 
anywhere, except, perhaps, in the State of Maryland. 
There is no use in saying to us that we are stubborn 
and obstinate because we won't do some such thing as 
this. We cannot do it. We cannot get onr men to vote 
it. I speak by the card, that we ctmnot give the Stnlo 
of Illinois in such case by fifty thousand. We would be 
flatter down than the "Negro Democracy" themselves 
have the heart to wish to see us. 

After saying this much, let me say a little on the 
17 



258 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

other side. There are plenty of men in the slave States 
that are altogether good enough for me to be either 
President or A''ice-President, provided they will profess 
their sympathy with our purpose, and will place them- 
selves on such ground that our men, upon principle, 
can vote for them. There are scores of them — good 
men in their character for intelligence, and talent, and 
integrity. If such an one will place himself upon the 
right ground, I am for his occupying one place upon 
the next Republican or Opposition ticket. I will 
heartily go for him. But unless he does so place him- 
I self, I think it is a matter of perfect nonsense to at- 
tempt to bring about a union upon any other basis; 
that if a union be made, the elements will scatter so 
that there can be no success for such a ticket, nor any- 
thing like success. The good old maxims of the Bible 
are applicable, and truly applicable, to human affairs, 
and in this, as in other things, we may say here that 
he who is not for us is against us; he who gathereth 
not with us scattereth. I should be glad to have some 
of the many good, and able, and noble men of the South 
to place themselves where we can confer upon them 
the high honor of an election upon one or the other end 
of our ticket. It would do my soul good to do that 
thing. It would enable us to teach them that, inas- 
much as we select one of their own number to carry 
out our principles, we are free from the charge that we 
mean more than we say. 




Lincoln as President-Elect, 1860 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM! LINX'OLX. 259 



ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, 
FEBRUARY 27, 1860. 

[This, one of the great speeches of Mr. Lincoln, is worthy of 
the notable gathering which turned out at New York to hear tlie 
rough Western orator, who loved to be taken for what he was, 
a rude but kindly child of the people. The audience he addressed 
was a cultured and critical one, composed largely of eminent men 
in the various learned professions; while on the platform with 
him, besides the chairman, the poet Brj'ant, were men of the 
stamp of Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, Joseph Choate, 
David Dudley Field, and other men of high intellectual and social 
position. The address made a profound impression, not only by 
the pure logic and forcible argument that mark the whole speech, 
but by the masterly manner in which Mr. Lincoln reviewed the 
history of the Slave question from the early years of the fathers 
downwards, and his lucid statement of the attitude of the two 
great political parties toward it. Admirable wa^ the speaker's 
restraint, though all the more effective, when speaking of the 
South, and of slavery as a wrong, and when treating of the 
moral necessity of excluding slavery from the Territories. The 
fervor of the orator's appeal to do right and to be true to duty 
did much also to move his audience and call forth their enthusi- 
asm ; while the effect of the whole was to draw favorable atten- 
tion to Mr. Lincoln, over the length and breadth of the country, 
as a possible future candidate for the Presidency]. 

Mr. President and Fellow -citizens of Neiv York: 
The facts with which I shall deal this evening are 
mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new 
in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall 
be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the 
facts, and the inferences and observations following 
that presentation. In his speech last autumn at Co- 
lumbus, Ohio, as reported in the '' New- York Times," 
Senator Douglas said: 

Our fathers, wlien they framed the government under which 
we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, 
than we do now. 

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as p teyt for this 



260 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise 
and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between 
Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed 
by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry : 
What was the understanding those fathers had of the 
question mentioned? 

What is the frame of government under which we 
live? The answer must be, "The Constitution of the 
United States." That Constitution consists of the 
original, framed in 1787, and under which the present 
government first went into operation, and twelve sub- 
sequently framed amendments, the first ten of which 
were framed in 1789. 

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution ? 
I suppose the " thirty-nine " who signed the original 
instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed 
that part of the present government. It is almost 
exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether 
true to say they fairly represented the opinion and 
sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their 
names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to 
quite all, need not now be repeated. 

I take these " thirty-nine," for the present, as being 
" our fathers who framed the government under which 
we live." What is the question which, according to 
the text, those fathers understood "just as well, and 
even better, than we do now " ? 

It is this: Does the proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, for- 
bid our Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in our Federal Territories? 

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and 
Republicans the negative. This affirmation and de- 
nial form an issue; and this issue — this question — is 
precisely what the text declares our fathers understood 
" better than we." Let us now inquire whether the 
" thirty-nine," or any of them, ever acted upon this 
question ; and if they did, how they acted upon it — how 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 261 

they expressed that better imderstanding. In 1784, 
three years before the Constitution, the United States 
then owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other, 
the Congress of the Confederation had before them the 
(juestion of prohibiting slavery in that Territory; and 
four of the '* thirty-nine " who afterward framed tlie 
Constitution were in tliat Congress, and voted on that 
question. Of these, Koger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, 
and Hugh Williamson voted for the prohibition, thus 
showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing 
local from Federal autliority, nor anything else, prop- 
erly forbade the Federal Government to control as to 
slavery in Federal territory. The other of the four, 
James McHenry, voted against the prohibition, show- 
ing that for some cause he thought it improper to vote 
for it. 

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the 
convention was in session framing it, and while the 
Northwestern Territory still was the only Territory 
owned by the United States, the same question of pro- 
hibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the 
Congress of the Confederation ; and two more of the 
" thirty-nine " who afterward signed the Constitution 
were in that Congress, and voted on the question. 
They were William Blount and William Few ; and 
they both voted for the prohibition — thus showing that 
in their understanding no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. This time the prohibition became 
a law, being part of what is now well known as the 
ordinance of '87. 

The question of Federal control of slavery in the Ter- 
ritories seems not to have been directly before the con- 
vention which framed the original Constitution ; and 
hence it is not recorded that the " thirty-nine," or any 
of them, while engaged on that instrument, expressed 
any opinion on that precise question. 



262 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the 
Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the ordi- 
nance of '87, including the prohibition of slavery in 
the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was 
reported by one of the " thirty-nine " — Thomas Fitz- 
simmons, then a member of the House of Representa- 
tives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its 
stages without a word of opposition, and finally passed 
both branches without ayes and nays, which is equiv- 
alent to a unanimous passage. In this Congress there 
were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the 
original Constitution. They were John Langdon, 
Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, 
Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few, Abra- 
ham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George 
Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, 
Daniel Carroll, and James Madison. 

This shows that, in their understanding, no line di- 
viding local from Federal authority, nor anything in 
the Constitution, properly forbade Congress to pro- 
hibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both their 
fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support 
the Constitution, would have constrained them to op- 
pose the prohibition. 

Again, George Washington, another of the " thirty- 
nine," was then President of the United States, and 
as such approved and signed the bill, thus completing 
its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his 
understanding, no line dividing local from Federal 
authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal 
territory. 

No great while after the adoption of the original 
Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the Federal 
Government the country now constituting the State of 
Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia ceded that 
which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and 
Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a con- 



SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 263 

dition by the ceding States that the Federal Govern- 
ment should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. 
Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded 
country. Under these circumstances, Congress, on 
taking charge of these countries, did not absolutely 
prohibit slavery within them. But they did interfere 
with it — take control of it — even there, to a certain 
extent. In 1798 Congress organized the Territory of 
Mississippi. In the act of organization they prohibited 
the bringing of slaves into the Territory from any 
place without the United States, by fine, and giving 
freedom to slaves so brought. This act passed both 
branches of Congress without yeas and nays. In that 
Congress were three of the " thirty-nine " who framed 
the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, 
George Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They all prob- 
ably voted for it. Certainly they would have placed 
their opposition to it upon record if, in their under- 
standing, any line dividing local from Federal author- 
ity, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. 

In 1803 the Federal Government purchased the 
Louisiana country. Our former territorial acquisitions 
came from certain of our own States; but this Louisi- 
ana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In 
1804 Congress gave a territorial organization to that 
part of it which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. 
New Orleans, lying within that part, was an old and 
comparatively large city. There were other considerable 
towns and settlements, and slavery was extensively 
and thoroughly intermingled with the people. Con- 
gress did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery; 
but they did interfere with it — take control of it — in a 
more marked and extensive way than they did in the 
case of Mississippi. The substance of the provision 
therein made in relation to slaves was : 



264 



SPEECHES OE ABRAHAM LlNCOLl^. 



1st. That no slave should be imported into the Ter- 
ritory from foreign parts. 

2d. That no slave should be carried into it who had 
been imported into the United States since the first 
day of May, 1798. 

3d. That no slave should be carried into it, except by 
the owner, and for his own use as a settler; the pen- 
alty in all the cases being a fine upon the violator of 
the law, and freedom to the slave. 

This act also was passed without ayes or nays. In 
the Congress which passed it there were two of the 
" thirty-nine." They w^ere Abraham Baldwin and 
Jonathan Dayton, As stated in the case of Mississippi, 
it is probable they both voted for it. They would not 
have allowed it to pass without recording their oppo- 
sition to it if, in their understanding, it violated either 
the line properly dividing local from Federal author- 
ity, or any provision of the Constitution. 

In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri question. 
Many votes were taken, by yeas and nays, in both 
branches of Congress, upon the various phases of the 
general question. Two of the " thirty-nine " — Rufus 
King and Charles Pinckney — were members of that 
Congress. Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohi- 
bition and against all compromises, while Mr, Pinck- 
ney as steadily voted against slavery prohibition and 
against all compromises. By this, Mr, King showed 
that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, 
was violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in Fed- 
eral territory ; while Mr, Pinckney, by his votes, showed 
that, in his understanding, there was some suflScient 
reason for opposing such prohibition in that case. 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the 
" thirty-nine," or of any of them, upon the direct issue, 
which I have been able to discover. 

To enumerate the persons who thus acted as being 
four in 1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 265 

1798, two in 1804, and two in 1819-20, there would be 
thirty of them. But this would be counting John 
Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, 
and George Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin 
three times. The true number of those of the *' thirty- 
nine " whom I have shown to have acted upon the 
question which, by the text, they understood better 
than we, is twentj'-three, leaving sixteen not shown 
to have acted upon it in any way. 

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty- 
nine fathers *' who framed the government under which 
we live," who have, upon their official responsibility 
and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question 
which the text affirms they '^ understood just as well, 
and even better, than we do now " ; and twenty-one of 
them — a clear majority of the whole " thirty-nine " — 
so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross polit- 
ical impropriety and wilful perjury if, in their un- 
derstanding, any proper division between local and 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they 
had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
the Federal Territories. Thus the twentj'-one acted; 
and, as actions speak louder than words, so actions 
under such responsibility speak still louder. 

Two of the twenty-three voted against congressional 
prohibition of slavery in the Federal Territories, in the 
instances in which they acted upon the question. But 
for what reasons they so voted is not known. They may 
have done so because they thought a proper division 
of local from Federal authority, or some provision or 
principle of the Constitution, stood in the way ; or they 
may, without any such question, have voted against the 
prohibition on what appeared to them to be sufficient 
grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to sup- 
port the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what 
he understands to be an unconstitutional measure, 
however expedient he may think it; but one may and 



266 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

ought to vote against a measure which he deems con- 
stitutional if, at the same time, he deems it inexpedient. 
It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the two 
who voted against the prohibition as having done so 
because, in their understanding, any proper division 
of local from Federal authority, or anything in the 
Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to con- 
trol as to slavery in Federal territory. 

The remaining sixteen of the " thirty-nine," so far 
as I have discovered, have left no record of their un- 
derstanding upon the direct question of Federal con- 
trol of slavery in the Federal Territories. But there 
is much reason to believe that their understanding 
upon that question would not have appeared different 
from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been 
manifested at all. 

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have 
purposely omitted whatever understanding may have 
been manifested by any person, however distinguished, 
other than the thirty-nine fathers who framed the 
original Constitution ; and, for the same reason, I 
have also omitted whatever understanding may have 
been manifested by any of the " thirty-nine " even on 
any other phase of the general question of slavery. If 
we should look into their acts and declarations on 
those other phases, as the foreign slave-trade, and the 
morality and policy of slavery generally, it would ap- 
pear to us that on the direct question of Federal con- 
trol of slavery in Federal Territories, the sixteen, if 
they had acted at all, would probably have acted just 
as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were 
several of the most noted antislavery men of those 
times, — as Dr. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and 
Gouverneur Morris, — while there was not one now 
known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John 
Rutledge, of South Carolina. 

The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 267 

one — a clear majority of the whole — certainly under- 
stood that no proper division of local from Federal 
authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control slavery in the Fed- 
eral Territories; while all the rest had probably the 
same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the 
understanding of our fathers who framed the original 
Constitution ; and the text affirms that they understood 
the question " better than we." 

But, so far, I have been considering the understand- 
ing of the question manifested by the framers of the 
original Constitution. In and by the original instru- 
ment, a mode was provided for amending it ; and, as I 
have already stated, the present frame of " the govern- 
ment under which we live" consists of that original, 
and twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted 
since. Those who now insist that Federal control of 
slavery in Federal Territories violates the Constitution, 
point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus 
violates; and, as I understand, they all fix upon pro- 
visions in these amendatory articles, and not in the 
original instrument. The Supreme Court, in the Dred 
Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, 
which provides that no person shall be deprived of 
" life, liberty, or property without due process of law "; 
while Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant 
themselves upon the tenth amendment, providing that 
" the powers not delegated to the United States by the 
Constitution " " are reserved to the States respectively, 
or to the people." 

Now, it so happens that these amendments were 
framed by the first Congress which sat under the Con- 
stitution — the identical Congress which passed the act, 
already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of slavery 
in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the 
same Congress, but they were the identical, same indi- 
vidual men who, at the same session, and at the same 
time within the session, had under consideration, and 



268 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

in progress toward maturity, these constitutional 
amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the 
territory the nation then owned. The constitutional 
amendments were introduced before, and passed after, 
the act enforcing the ordinance of '87; so that, during 
the whole pendency of the act to enforce the ordinance, 
the constitutional amendments were also pending. 

The seventy-six members of that Congress, including 
sixteen of the framers of the original Constitution, as 
before stated, were preeminently our fathers who 
framed that part of " the government under which we 
live " which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal 
Government to control slavery in the Federal Terri- 
tories. 

Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this 
day to afiSrm that the two things which that Congress 
deliberately framed, and carried to maturity at the 
same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each other? 
And does not such affirmation become impudently 
absurd when coupled with the other affirmation, from 
the same mouth, that those who did the two things 
alleged to be inconsistent, understood whether they 
really were inconsistent better than we — better than he 
who affirms that they are inconsistent? 

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine 
framers of the original Constitution, and the seventy- 
six members of the Congress which framed the amend- 
ments thereto, taken together, do certainly include 
those who may be fairly called " our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live." And so 
assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them 
ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his understand- 
ing, any proper division of local from Federal author- 
ity, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy any 
one to show that any living man in the whole world 
ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHMI LINCOLN. 269 

(and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the 
last half of the present century), declare that, in his 
understanding, any proper division of local from Fed- 
eral authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories. To those who now so declare I 
give not only ^' our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live," but with them all other living 
men within the century in which it was framed, among 
whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the 
evidence of a single man agreeing with them. 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being 
misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound 
to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To 
do so would be to discard all the lights of current ex- 
perience — to reject all progress, all improvement. 
What I do say is that if we would supplant the opin- 
ions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should 
do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so 
clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered 
and weighed, cannot stand ; and most surely not in a 
case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the 
question better than we. 

If any man at this day sincerely believes that a 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or any 
part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Govern- 
ment to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, 
he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all 
truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. 
But he has no right to mislead others, who have less 
access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the 
false belief that "our fathers who framed the govern- 
ment under which we live " were of the same opinion 
— thus substituting falsehood and deception for truth- 
ful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this 
day sincerely believes " our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live" used and applied 
principles, in other cases, which ought to have led 



270 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

them to understand that a proper division of local 
from Federal authority, or some part of the Consti- 
tution, forbids the Federal Government to control as 
to slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to say 
so. But he should, at the same time, brave the respon- 
sibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands 
their principles better than they did themselves; and 
especially should he not shirk that responsibility by 
asserting that they " understood the question just as 
well, and even better, than we do now." 

But enough ! Let all who believe that " our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live under- 
stood this question just as well, and even better, than 
we do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they acted 
upon it. This is all Republicans ask — all Republicans 
desire — in relation to slavery. As those fathers 
marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to 
be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only 
because of and so far as its actual presence among us 
makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let 
all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudg- 
ingly, but fully and fairly, maintained. For this 
Republicans contend, and with this, so far as I know 
or believe, they will be content. 

And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose they 
will not, — I would address a few words to the South- 
ern people. 

I would say to them : You consider yourselves a 
reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the 
general qualities of reason and justice you are not in- 
ferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of 
us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as rep- 
tiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You 
will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but noth- 
ing like it to " Black Republicans." In all your con- 
tentions with one another, each of you deems an 
unconditional condemnation of " Black Republican- 
ism " as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 271 

such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable 
prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be 
admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now can you 
or not be prevailed upon to pause and to consider 
whetlier this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? 
Bring forward your charges and specifications, and 
then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. 
You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes 
an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You 
produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our 
party has no existence in j'our section — gets no votes 
in your section. The fact is substantially true; but 
does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we 
should, without change of principle, begin to get votes 
in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. 
You cannot escape this conclusion ; and yet, are you 
willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably 
soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we 
shall get votes in your section this very year. You 
will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that 
your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that 
we get no votes in your section is a fact of your mak- 
ing, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that 
fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so until 
you show that we repel you by some wrong principle 
or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle 
or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to 
where you ought to have started — to a discussion of 
the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, 
put in practice, would wrong your section for the bene- 
fit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, 
and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and 
denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of 
whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong 
your section ; and so meet us as if it were possible that 
something may be said on our side. Do you accept 
the challenge? No! Then you really believe that the 
principle which " our fathers who framed the govern- 



272 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ment under which we live" thought so clearly right 
as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon 
their oflBcial oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to 
demand your condemnation without a moment's con- 
sideration. 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the ^ivarn- 
ing against sectional parties given by Washington in 
his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before 
Washington gave that warning, he had, as President 
of the United States, approved and signed an act of 
Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the 
Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy 
of the government upon that subject up to and at the 
very moment he penned that warning; and about one 
year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he 
considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing 
in the same connection his hope that we should at some 
time hrve a confederacy of free States. 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism 
has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning 
a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands 
against you? Could Washington himself speak, would 
he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who 
sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it? 
We respect that warning of Washington, and we com- 
mend it to you, together with his example pointing to 
the right application of it. 

But you say you are conservative — eminently con- 
servative — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or 
something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it 
not adherence to the old and tried, against the new 
and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical 
old policy on the point in controversy which was 
adopted by " our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live"; while you with one accord re- 
ject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and 
insist upon substituting something new. True, you 
disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 273 

shall be. You are divided on new propositions and 
plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denounc- 
ing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for 
reviving the foreign slave-trade; some for a congress- 
ional slave code for the Territories; some for Congress 
forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery within 
their limits; some for maintaining slavery in the Terri- 
tories through the judiciar}"^; some for the " gur-reat 
pur-rinciple " that "' if one man would enslave another, 
no third man should object," fantastically called " pop- 
ular sovereignty " ; but never a man among you is in 
favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal Ter- 
ritories, according to the practice of " our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live." Not 
one of all your various plans can show a precedent or 
an advocate in the century within which our govern- 
ment originated. Consider, then, whether your claim 
of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge of 
destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear 
and stable foundations. 

Again, you say we have made the slavery question 
more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. 
We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that 
we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded 
the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still 
resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater 
prominence of the question. Would you have that 
question reduced to its former proportions? Go back 
to that old policy. What has been will be again, under 
the same conditions. If you would have the peace 
of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the 
old times. 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your 
slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Har- 
per's Ferry ! John Brown ! ! John Brown was no Re- 
publican; and you have failed to implicate a single 
Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any 
member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know 
18 



2Y4 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

it, or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are 
inexcusable for not designating the man and proving 
tlie fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable 
for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the 
assertion after you have tried and failed to make the 
proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge 
which one does not know to be true, is simply mali- 
cious slander. 

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly 
aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but 
still insist that our doctrines and declarations neces- 
sarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. 
We know we hold no doctrine, and make no declara- 
tion, which were not held to and made by " our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live." You 
never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. 
When it occurred, some important State elections were 
near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the 
belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could 
get an advantage of us in those elections. The elec- 
tions came, and your expectations were not quite ful- 
filled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself 
at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not 
much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. Re- 
publican doctrines and declarations are accompanied 
with a continual protest against any interference 
whatever with your slaves, or with you about your 
slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. 
True, we do, in common with " our fathers who framed 
the government under which we live," declare our be- 
lief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear 
us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the 
slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. 
I believe they would not, in fact, generally know it but 
for your misrepresentations of us in their hearing. In 
your political contests among yourselves, each faction 
charges the other with sympathy with Black Repub- 
licanism; and then, to give point to the charge, defines 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN-. ^75 

Black Kepublicanism to simply be insurrection, blood, 
and thunder among the slaves. 

Slave insurrections are no more common now than 
they were before the Republican party was organ- 
ized. What induced the Southampton insurrection, 
twenty-eight years ago, in which at least three times 
as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? You 
can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the con- 
clusion that Southampton was " got up by Black Re- 
publicanism." In the present state of things in the 
United States, I do not think a general, or even a very 
extensive, slave insurrection is possible. The indispen- 
sable concert of action cannot be obtained. The slaves 
have no means of rapid communication ; nor can incen- 
diary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explo- 
sive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there 
neither are, nor can be supplied, the indispensable 
connecting trains. 

Much is said by Southern people about the affection 
of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part 
of it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could 
scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty indi- 
viduals before some one of them, to save the life of a 
favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is 
the rule ; and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an 
exception to it, but a case occurring under peculiar 
circumstances. The gunpowder plot of British history, 
though not connected with slaves, was more in point. 
In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the 
secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a 
friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by conse- 
quence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings 
from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations 
in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or 
so, will continue to occur as the natural results of 
slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I 
think, can happen in this country for a long time. 



276 SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Whoever much fears, or much hopes, for such an event, 
will be alike disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years 
ago, ** It is still in our power to direct the process of 
emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such 
slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off insensibh^ ; 
and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white 
laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself 
on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held 
up." 

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that 
the power of emancipation is in the Federal Govern- 
ment. He spoke of Virginia ; and, as to the power of 
emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding States only. 
The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has 
the power of restraining the extension of the institu- 
tion — the power to insure that a slave insurrection 
shall never occur on any American soil which is now 
free from slavery. 

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a 
slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to 
get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves re- 
fused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that 
the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough 
it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, 
corresponds with the many attempts, related in history, 
at the assassination of kings and emperors. An en- 
thusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he 
fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate 
them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little 
less than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on 
Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at Harper's 
Ferry, were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. 
The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one 
case, and on New England in the other, does not dis- 
prove the sameness of the two things. 

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by 
the use of John Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 277 

break up the Republican organization? Human action 
can be modified to some extent, but human nature can- 
not be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling 
against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a 
million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that 
judgment and feeling — that sentiment — by breaking 
up the political organization which rallies around it. 
You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which 
has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest 
fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by 
forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peace- 
ful channel of the ballot-box into some other channel? 
What would that other channel probably be? Would 
the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged 
by the operation? 

But you will break up the Union rather than submit 
to a denial of your constitutional rights. 

That has a somewhat reckless sound ; but it would be 
palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by 
the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right 
plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are 
proposing no such thing. 

When you make these declarations you have a spe- 
cific and well understood allusion to an assumed con- 
stitutional right of yours to take slaves into the Fede- 
ral Territories, and to hold them there as property. 
But no such right is specifically written in the Consti- 
tution. That instrument is literally silent about any 
such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a 
right has any existence in the Constitution, even by 
implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will 
destroy the government, unless you be allowed to con- 
strue and force the Constitution as you please, on all 
points in dispute between you and us. You will rule 
or ruin in all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you 
will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed 



278 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. 
But waiving the law^-er's distinction between dictum 
and decision, the court has decided the question for 
you in a sort of way. The court has substantially 
said, it is your constitutional right to take slaves into 
the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as prop- 
erty. When I say the decision was made in a sort of 
way, I mean it was made in a divided court, by a bare 
majority of the judges, and they not quite agreeing 
with one another in the reasons for making it; that it 
is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with 
one another about its meaning, and that it was mainly 
based upon a mistaken statement of fact — the state- 
ment in the opinion that " the right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Consti- 
tution." 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that 
the right of property in a slave is not " distinctly and 
expressly affirmed " in it. Bear in mind, the judges 
do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right 
is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they 
pledge their veracity that it is " distinctly and ex- 
pressly " affirmed there — " distinctly," that is, not 
mingled with anything else — ''expressly," that is, in 
words meaning just that, without the aid of any infer- 
ence, and susceptible of no other meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that 
such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, 
it would be open to others to show that neither the 
word " slave " nor " slavery " is to be found in the 
Constitution, nor the word " property " even, in any 
connection with language alluding to the things slave, 
or slavery; and that wherever in that instrument the 
slave is alluded to, he is called a "person"; and 
wherever his master's legal right in relation to him 
is alluded to, it is spoken of as " service or labor which 
may be due " — as a debt payable in service or labor. 
Also it would be open to show, by contemporaneous 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 279 

history, tliat tliis mode of alludiDg to slaves and 
slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on 
purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that 
there could be property in man. 

To show all this is easy and certain. 

When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be 
brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect 
that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and 
reconsider the conclusion based upon it? 

And then it is to be remembered that " our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live " — 
the men who made the Constitution — decided this same 
constitutional question in our favor long ago: decided 
it without division among themselves when making 
the decision; without division among themselves about 
the meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any 
evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken 
statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel 
yourselves justified to break up this government unless 
such a court decision as yours is shall be at once sub- 
mitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political 
action? But you will not abide the election of a Re- 
publican president ! In that supposed event, you say, 
you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the 
great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! 
That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, 
and mutters through his teeth, '' Stand and deliver, 
or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer! " 

To be sure, what a robber demanded of me — my 
money — was my own ; and I had a clear right to keep 
it ; but it was no more my own than my vote is ray own ; 
and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and 
the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort un- 
vote, can scarcely be distinguished in i)rinciple. 

A few words now to the Republicans. It is exceed- 
ingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy 
shall be at peace, and in harmony one with another. 



280 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even 
though much provoked, let us do nothing through pas- 
sion and ill temper. Even though the Southern people 
will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider 
their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate 
view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they 
say and do, and by the subject and nature of their con- 
troversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will 
satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncon- 
ditionally surrendered to them? We know they will 
not. In all their present complaints against us, the 
Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and 
insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them 
if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions 
and insurrections? We know it will not. We so 
know, because we know we never had anything to do 
with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total 
abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the 
denunciation. 

The question recurs. What will satisfy them? 
Simply this : we must not only let them alone, but we 
must somehow convince them that we do let them 
alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. 
We have been so trying to convince them from the very 
beginning of our organization, but with no success. 
In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly 
protested our purpose to let them alone ; but this has 
had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing 
to convince them is the fact that they have never de- 
tected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all 
failing, what will convince them? This, and this only : 
cease to call slaver}^ wrong, and join them in calling 
it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in 
acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated 
■ — we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Sena- 
tor Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 2SI 

enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is 
wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, 
or in private. We must arrest and return their fugi- 
tive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down 
our free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere 
must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to 
slavery, before they Avill cease to believe that all their 
troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case pre- 
cisely in this way. Most of them would probably say 
to us, " Let us alone ; do nothing to us, and say what 
you please about slavery." But we do let them alone, 
• — have never disturbed them, — so that, after all, it is 
what we say which dissatisfies them. They will con- 
tinue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying. 

I am also aware they have not as yet in terms de- 
manded the overthrow of our free-State constitutions. 
Yot those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery 
with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings 
against it; and when all these other sayings shall have 
been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will 
be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. 
It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand 
the whole of this just now. Demanding what they 
do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily 
stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, 
as they do, that slavery is morally right and socially 
elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national 
recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground 
save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery 
is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions 
against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced 
and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly ob- 
ject to its nationality — its universality; if it is wrong, 
they cannot justly insist upon its extension — its en- 
largement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we 
thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily 



282 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it 
right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact 
upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking 
it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring 
its full recognition as being right; but thinking it 
wrong, as we do, can w^e yield to them? Can we cast 
our votes with their view, and against our own? In 
view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, 
can we do this? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to 
let it alone where it is, because that much is due to 
the necessity arising from its actual presence in the 
nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, 
allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to 
overrun us here in these free States? If our sense of 
duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fear- 
lessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none 
of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are 
so industriously plied and belabored — contrivances 
such as groping for some middle ground between the 
right and the wrong : vain as the search for a man who 
should be neither a living man nor a dead man; such 
as a policy of " don't care " on a question about which 
all true men do care; such as Union appeals be- 
seeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, re- 
versing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but 
the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to 
Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington 
said and undo what Washington did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false 
accusations against us, nor frightened from it by men- 
aces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons 
to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes 
might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do 
our duty as we understand it. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



283 



SPEECH AT NEW HA YEN, CONN., MAR. 6, 1860. 

[In the following speech, somewhat condensed, to a Connecti- 
cut audience^ Mr. Lincoln directs attention to the national im- 
portance and magnitude of the engrossing question of the time, 
which he was so instrumental in effectively dealing with. In 
its political aspects, the right and wrong of slavery, and the 
" irrepressible conflict " now launched upon the nation, the orator 
pointed out, were endangering the perpetuity of the Union. In 
the address, he repeats what he had elsewhere affirmed, that the 
fathers who framed the national government looked on slavery 
as a wrong, sought to prohibit its spreading, and looked for- 
ward to a time when the evil institution would cease. These 
are the main points brought forward and discussed in the sub- 
joined address]. 

Mr. President and Fellow-citizens of 'New Haven: 
li the Republican party of this nation shall ever have 
the national house intrusted to its keeping, it will be 
the duty of that party to attend to all the affairs of 
national housekeeping. Whatever matters of impor- 
tance may come up, whatever diflSculties may arise, in 
the way of its administration of the government, that 
party will then have to attend to : it will then be com- 
pelled to attend to other questions besides this ques- 
tion which now assumes an overwhelming importance 
— the question of slavery. It is true that in the organi- 
zation of the Republican party this question of slavery 
was more important than any other; indeed, so much 
more important has it become that no other national 
question can even get a hearing just at present. The 
old question of tariff — a matter that will remain one of 
the chief affairs of national housekeeping to all time; 
the question of the management of financial affairs; 
the question of the disposition of the public domain: 
how shall it be managed for the purpose of getting it 
well settled, and of making there the homes of a free 



284 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLK". 

and happj people — these will remain open and require 
attention for a great wliile yet, and these questions will 
have to be attended to by whatever party has the con- 
trol of the government. Yet just now they cannot even 
obtain a hearing, and I do not purpose to detain you 
upon these topics, or what sort of hearing they should 
have when opportunity shall come. For whether we 
will or not, the question of slavery is the question, the 
all-absorbing topic, of the day. It is true that all of 
us — and by that I mean not the Republican party 
alone, but the whole American people here and else- 
where — all of us wish this question settled ; wish it out 
of the way. It stands in the way and prevents the ad- 
justment and the giving of necessary attention to 
other questions of national housekeeping. The people 
of the whole nation agree that this question ought to 
be settled, and yet it is not settled ; and the reason is 
that they are not yet agreed how it shall be settled. 
All wish it done, but some wish one way and some 
another, and some a third, or fourth, or fifth ; different 
bodies are pulling in different directions, and none of 
them having a decided majority are able to accomplish 
the common object. 

In the beginning of the year 1854, a new policy was 
inaugurated with the avowed object and confident 
promise that it would entirely and forever put an end 
to the slav^ery agitation. It was again and again 
declared that under this policy, when once successfully 
established, the country would be forever rid of this 
whole question. Yet under the operation of that policy 
this agitation has not only not ceased, but it has been 
constantly augmented. And this, too, although from 
the day of its introduction its friends, who promised 
that it would wholly end all agitation, constantly in- 
sisted, down to the time that the Lecompton bill was 
introduced, that it was working admirably, and that 
its inevitable tendency was to remove the question for- 
ever from the politics of the country. Can you call to 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 285 

mind any Democratic speech, made after the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise down to the time of the 
Lecompton bill, in which it was not predicted that the 
slavery agitation was just at an end; that " the Aboli- 
tion excitement was played out," " the Kansas question 
was dead," '' they have made the most they can out of 
this question and it is now forever settled "? But since 
the Lecompton bill, no Democrat within my experience 
has ever pretended that he could see the end. That 
cry has been dropped. They themselves do not pretend 
now that the agitation of this subject has come to an 
end yet. The truth is that this question is one of 
national importance, and we cannot help dealing with 
it; we must do something about it, whether we will or 
not. We cannot avoid it; the subject is one we cannot 
avoid considering; we can no more avoid it than a man 
can live without eating. It is upon us; it attaches to 
the body politic as much and as closely as the natural 
wants attach to our natural bodies. Now I think it 
important that this matter should be taken up in 
earnest and really settled. And one way to bring about 
a true settlement of the question is to understand its 
true magnitude. 

There have been many efforts to settle it. Again and 
again it has been fondly hoi)ed that it was settled, but 
every time it breaks out afresh, and more violently 
than ever. It was settled, our fathers hoped, by the 
Missouri Compromise, but it did not stay settled. 
Then the compromises of 1850 were declared to be a full 
and final settlement of the question. The two great 
parties, each in national convention, adopted resolu- 
tions declaring that the settlement made by the com- 
promise of 1850 w^as a finality — that it would last for- 
ever. Yet how long before it was unsettled again? It 
broke out again in 1854, and blazed higher and raged 
more furiously than ever before, and the agitation has 
not rested since. 

These repeated settlements must have some fault 



286 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

about them. There must be some inadequacy in their 
very nature to the purpose for which they were de- 
signed. We can only speculate as to where that fault 
— that inadequacy is, but we may perhaps profit by 
past experience. 

I think that one of the causes of these repeated fail- 
ures is that our best and greatest men have greatly 
underestimated the size of this question. They have 
constantly brought forward small cures for great sores 
— plasters too small to cover the wound. That is one 
reason that all settlements have proved so temporary, 
so evanescent. 

Look at the magnitude of this subject. One sixth 
of our population, in round numbers — not quite one 
sixth, and yet more than a seventh — about one sixth 
of the whole population of the United States, are slaves. 
The owners of these slaves consider them property. 
The effect upon the minds of the owners is that of prop- 
erty, and nothing else; it induces them to insist upon 
all that will favorably affect its value as property, to 
demand laws and institutions and a public policy that 
shall increase and secure its value, and make it durable, 
lasting, and universal. The effect on the minds of the 
owners is to persuade them that there is no wrong in 
it. The slaveholder does not like to be considered a 
mean fellow for holding that species of property, and 
hence he has to struggle within himself, and sets about 
arguing himself into the belief that slavery is right. 
The property influences his mind. The dissenting 
minister who argued some theological point with one 
of the established church was always met by the reply, 
" I can't see it so." He opened the Bible and pointed 
him to a passage, but the orthodox minister replied, 
" I can't see it so." Then he showed him a single 
word — "Can you see that?" "Yes, I see it," was the 
reply. The dissenter laid a guinea over the word, and 
asked, "Do you see it now?" So here. Whether the 
owners of this species of propertv do really see it as 



SPEECHES OF ALRAHAM LINCOLN. 287 

it is, it is not for me to say ; but if they do, they see it 
as it is through two billions of dollars, and that is a 
pretty thick coating. Certain it is that they do not see 
it as we see it. Certain it is that this two thousand 
million of dollars invested in this species of property 
is all so concentrated that the mind can grasp it at 
once. This immense pecuniary interest has its in- 
fluence upon their minds. 

But here in Connecticut and at the North slavery 
does not exist, and we see it through no such medium. 
To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human 
beings; men, not property; that some of the things, at 
least, stated about men in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence apply to them as well as to us. I say we 
think, most of us, that this charter of freedom applies 
to the slave as well as to ourselves; that the class of 
arguments put forward to batter down that idea are 
also calculated to break down the very idea of free 
government, even for Avhite men, and to undermine the 
very foundations of free society. We think slavery a 
great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the 
right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it 
as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will 
reach it. ^Ye think that a respect for ourselves, a re- 
gard for future generations and for the God that made 
us, require that we put down this wrong where our 
votes will properly reach it. We think that species 
of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think 
slavery a great moral, social, and political evil, 
tolerable only because, and so far as, its actual exis- 
tence makes it necessary to tolerate it. and that beyond 
that it ought to be treated as a wrong. 

Now these two ideas — the property idea that slavery 
is right and the idea that it is M-rong — come into 
collision, and do actually produce that irrepressible 
conflict which Mr. Seward has been so roundly a))uscd 
for mentioning. The two ideas conflict, and must for- 
ever conflict. 



288 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

Again, in its political aspect does anything in any 
way endanger the perpetuity of this Union but that 
single thing — slavery? Many of our adversaries are 
anxious to claim that they are specially devoted to the 
Union, and take pains to charge upon us hostility to 
the Union. Now we claim that we are the only true 
Union men, and we put to them this one proposition : 
What ever endangered this Union save and except 
slavery? Did any other thing ever cause a moment's 
fear? All men must agree that this thing alone has 
ever endangered the perpetuity of the Union. But if 
it was threatened by any other influence, would not all 
men say that the best thing that could be done, if we 
could not or ought not to destroy it, would be at least 
to keep it from growing any larger? Can any man 
believe that the way to save the Union is to extend and 
increase the only thing that threatens the Union, and 
to suffer it to grow bigger and bigger? 

Whenever this question shall be settled, it must be 
settled on some philosophical basis. No policy that 
does not rest upon philosophical public opinion can be 
permanently maintained. And hence there are but two 
policies in regard to slavery that can be at all main- 
tained. The first, based on the property view that 
slavery is right, conforms to that idea throughout, and 
demands that we shall do everything for it that we 
ought to do if it were right. We must sweep away all 
opposition, for opposition to the right is wrong; we 
must agree that slavery is right, and we must adopt the 
idea that property has persuaded the owner to believe, 
that slavery is morally right and socially elevating. 
This gives a philosophical basis for a permanent policy 
of encouragement. 

The other policy is one that squares with the idea 
that slavery is wrong, and it consists in doing every- 
thing that we ought to do if it is wrong. Now I don't 
wish to be misunderstood, nor to leave a gap down to 
be misrepresented, even. I don't mean that we ought 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 28'j 

to attack it where it exists. To me it seems tliat if we 
were to form a government anew, in view of the actual 
presence of slavery we should find it necessary to frame 
just such a government as our fathers did : giving to 
the slaveholder the entire control where the system 
was established, while we possess the power to restrain 
it from going outside those limits. From the neces- 
sities of the case we should be compelled to form just 
such a government as our blessed fathers gave us ; and 
surely if they have so made it, that adds another 
reason why we should let slavery alone where it exists. 

If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any 
man would saj' I might seize the nearest stick and kill 
it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, 
that would be another question. I might hurt the 
children more than the snake, and it might bite theiu. 
Much more, if I found it in bed with my neighbor's 
children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact 
not to meddle with his children under any circum- 
stances, it would become me to let that particular moou 
of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was 
a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be 
taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young 
snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man 
would say there was any question how 1 ought to 
decide ! 

That is just the case. The new Territories are the 
newly made bed to which our children are to go, and 
it lies with the nation to say whether they shall have 
snakes mixed up with them or not. It does not seem 
as if there could be much hesitation what our policy 
should be. 

Now I have spoken of a policy based on the idea that 
slavery is wrong, and a i)olicy based upon the idea 
that it is right. But an effort has been made for a 
policy that shall treat it as neither right nor wrong. 
It is based upon utter indifference. Its leading advo- 
cate has said : " I don't care whether it be voted up or 
19 



290 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

down." " It is merely a matter of dollars and cents." 
" The Almighty has drawn a line across this continent, 
on one side of which all soil must forever be cultivated 
by slave labor, and on the other by free." " When the 
struggle is between the white man and the negro, I am 
for the white man ; when it is between the negro and 
the crocodile, I am for the negro." Its central idea is 
indifiference. It holds that it makes no more difference 
to us whether the Territories become free or slave 
States, than whether my neighbor stocks his farm with 
horned cattle or puts it into tobacco. All recognize 
this policy, the plausible sugar-coated name of which 
is " popular sovereignty." 

That saying, " In the struggle between the white man 
and the negro," etc., which, I know, came from the 
same source as this policy — that saying marks another 
step. There is a falsehood wrapped up in that state- 
ment. " In the struggle between the white man and the 
negro," assumes that there is a struggle, in which 
either the white man must enslave the negro or the 
negro must enslave the white. There is no such 
struggle. It is merely an ingenious falsehood to de- 
grade and brutalize the negro. Let each let the other 
alone, and there is no struggle about it. If it was like 
two wrecked seamen on a narrow plank, where each 
must push the other off or drown himself, I would push 
the negro off — or a white man either; but it is not: 
the plank is large enough for both. This good earth is 
plenty broad enough for white man and negro both, 
and there is no need of either pushing the other off. 

So that saying, " In the struggle between the negro 
and the crocodile," etc., is made up from the idea that 
down where the crocodile inhabits, a white man can't 
labor; it must be nothing else but crocodile or negro; 
if the negro does not, the crocodile must possess the 
earth; in that case he declares for the negro. The 
meaning of the whole is just this: As a white man is 
to a negro, so is a negro to a crocodile ; and as the negro 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. £91 

may rightfully treat the crocodile, so may the white 
man rightfully treat the negro. This very dear phrase 
coined by its author, and so dear that he deliberately 
repeats it in many speeches, has a tendency to still 
further brutalize the negro, and to bring public opin- 
ion to the point of utter indifference whether men so 
brutalized are enslaved or not. When that time shall 
come, if ever, I think that policy to which I refer may 
prevail. But I hope the good free men of this country 
will never allow it to come, and until then the policy 
can never be maintained. 

Now, consider the effect of this policy. We in the 
States are not to care whether freedom or slavery gets 
the better, but the people in the Territories may care. 
They are to decide, and they may think what they 
please; it is a matter of dollars and cents! But are 
not the people of the Territories detailed from the 
States? If this feeling of indifference — this absence 
of moral sense about the question — prevails in the 
States, will it not be carried into the Territories? 
Will not every man say, " I don't care; it is nothing to 
me " ? If any one comes that wants slavery, must they 
not say, " I don't care whether freedom or slavery be 
voted up or voted down"? It results at last in 
nationalizing the institution of slavery. Even if fairly 
carried out, that policy is just as certain to nationalize 
slavery as the doctrine of Jeff Davis himself. These 
are only two roads to the same goal, and " popular 
sovereignty " is just as sure, and almost as short, as the 
other. 

What we want, and all we want, is to have with us 
the men who think slavery wrong. But those who say 
they hate slavery, and are opposed to it, but yet act 
with the Democratic party— where are they? Let us 
apply a few tests. You say that you think slavery a 
wrong, but you renounce all attempts to restrain it. 
Is there anything else that you think wrong, that you 
are not willing to deal with as a wrong? Why are you 



292 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

SO careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other? 
You will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; 
there is no place where you will allow it to be even 
called wrong. We must not call it wrong in the free 
States, because it is not there, and we must not call it 
wrong in the slave States, because it is there; we must 
not call it wrong in politics, because that is bringing 
morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong 
in the pulpit, because that is bringing politics into re- 
ligion; we must not bring it into the tract society, or 
other societies, because those are such unsuitable 
places, and there is no single place, according to you, 
where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong. 

Perhaps you will plead that if the people of slave 
States should of themselves set on foot an effort for 
emancipation, you would wish them success and bid 
them God-speed. Let us test that ! In 1858 the emanci- 
pation party of Missouri, with Frank Blair at their 
head, tried to get up a movement for that purpose ; and, 
having started a party, contested the State. Blair was 
beaten, apparently if not truly, and when the news 
came to Connecticut, you, who knew that Frank Blair 
was taking hold of this thing by the right end, and 
doing the only thing that you say can properly be done 
to remove this wrong — did you bow your heads in sor- 
row because of that defeat? Do you, any of you, know 
one single Democrat that showed sorrow over that 
result? Not one! On the contrary, every man threw 
up his hat, and hallooed at the top of his lungs, " Hoo- 
ray for Democracy ! " 

Now, gentlemen, the Republicans desire to place this 
great question of slavery on the very basis on which 
our fathers placed it, and no other. It is easy to 
demonstrate that " our fathers who framed this govern- 
ment under which we live " looked on slavery as wrong, 
and so framed it and everything about it as to square 
with the idea that it was wrong, so far as the necessi- 
ties arising from its existence permitted. In forming 
the Constitution they found the slave-trade existing, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. £93 

capital invested in it, fields depending upon it for labor, 
and the whole system resting upon the importation of 
slave labor. They therefore did not prohibit the slave- 
trade at once, but they gave the power to prohibit it 
after twenty years. Why was this? What other 
foreign trade did they treat in that way? Would they 
have done this if the}' had not thought slavery wrong? 

Another thing was done by some of the same men 
who framed the Constitution, and afterward adopted as 
their own act by the first Congress held under that Con- 
stitution, of which many of the framers were members 
— they prohibited the spread of slavery in the Terri- 
tories. Thus the same men, the framers of the Con- 
stitution, cut off tlie supply and prohibited the spread 
of slavery; and both acts show conclusivel}' that they 
considered that the thing was wrong. 

If additional proof is wanting, it can be found in the 
phraseology of the Constitution. When men are fram- 
ing a supreme law and chart of government to secure 
blessings and prosperity to untold geneiations yet to 
come, they use language as short and direct and ])lain 
as can be found to express their meaning. In all mat- 
ters but this of slavery the framers of the Constitu- 
tion used the very clearest, shortest, and most direct 
language. But the Constitution alludes to slavery 
three times without mentioning it once! The language 
used becomes ambiguous, roundabout, and mystical. 
They speak of the " immigration of persons," and mean 
the importation of slaves, but do not say so. In es- 
tablishing a basis of representation they say " all other 
persons," when they mean to say slaves. Why did they 
not use the shortest i)hrase? In providing for the re- 
turn of fugitives they say " persons held to service or 
labor." If they had said " slaves," it would have been 
plainer and less liable to misconstruction. Why did 
n't they do it? We cannot doubt that it was done on 
purpose. Only one reason is possible, and that is sup- 
plied us by one of the framers of the Constitution — ■ 
and it is not possible for man to conceive of any other. 



294 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

They expected and desired that the system would come 
to an end, and meant that when it did the Constitution 
should not show that there ever had been a slave in this 
good free country of ours. 

I will dwell on that no longer. I see the signs of 
the approaching triumph of the Eepublicans in the 
bearing of their political adversaries. A great deal 
of this war with us nowadays is mere bushwhacking. 
At the battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon's cavalry 
had charged again and again upon the unbroken 
squares of British infantry, at last they were giving up 
the attempt, and going off in disorder, when some of the 
officers, in mere vexation and complete despair, fired 
their pistols at those solid squares. The Democrats 
are in that sort of extreme desperation ; it is nothing 
else. I will take up a few of these arguments. 

There is " the irrepressible conflict." How they rail 
at Seward for that saying ! They repeat it constantly ; 
and although the proof has been thrust under their 
noses again and again that almost every good man 
since the formation of our government has uttered that 
same sentiment, from General Washington, who 
" trusted that we should yet have a confederacy of free 
States," with Jefferson, Jay, Monroe, down to the 
latest days, yet they refuse to notice that at all, and 
persist in railing at Seward for saying it. Even Roger 
A. Pryor, editor of the Richmond " Enquirer," uttered 
the same sentiment in almost the same language, and 
yet so little offense did it give the Democrats that he 
was sent for to Washington to edit the " States " — the 
Douglas organ there, while Douglas goes into hydro- 
phobia and spasms of rage because Seward dared to 
repeat it. That is what I call bushwhacking — a sort 
of argument that they must know any child can see 
through. 

Another is John Brown ! You stir up insurrections ; 
you invade the South ! John Brown ! Harper's Ferry ! 
Why, John Brown was not a Republican! You have 
never implicated a single Republican in that Harper's 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. OQfJ 

Ferry enterprise. We tell you if any member of the 
Kepubliean party is guilty in that matter, you know it 
or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are 
inexcusable not to designate the man and prove the 
fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable to 
assert it, and especially to persist in the assertion after 
you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need 
not be told that persisting in a charge which one does 
not know to be true is simply malicious slander. Some 
of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or 
encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist 
that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to 
such results. AYe do not believe it. We know we hold 
to no doctrines and make no declarations which were 
not held to and made by our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live, and we cannot see 
how declarations that were patriotic when they made 
them are villainous when we make them. You nevep 
dealt fairly by us in relation to that affair— and I 
will say frankly that I know of nothing in your char- 
acter that should lead us to suppose that you would. 
You had just been soundly thrashed in elections in sev- 
eral States, and others were soon to come. You rejoiced 
at the occasion, and only were troubled that there were 
not three times as many killed in the affair. You were 
in evident glee; there was no sorrow for the killed nop 
for the peace of Virginia disturbed; you were rejoic- 
ing that by charging Republicans with this thing you 
might get an advantage of us in New York and the 
other States. Y^ou pulled that string as tightly as you 
could, but your very generous and worthy expectations 
were not quite fulfilled. Each Republican knew that 
the charge was a slander as to himself at least, and was 
not inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. It 
was mere bushwhacking, because you had nothing else 
to do. You are still on that track, and I say. Go on ! 
If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, 
or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satis- 
fied. 



^96 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOL:^^. 



LINCOLN'S NOMINATION AND ELECTION AS 
PRESIDENT. 

[On his return from the East, in the early Spring of 1860, 
Lincoln, though he had hitherto no aspiration for the Presidency, 
was greeted enthusiastically in many quarters in the West as 
a possible candidate for the high office; and after his Cooper 
Institute speech at New York, his name was, even in the East, 
favorably considered. At Decatur, in his own State, " the rail- 
splitter," " Honest Old Abe," was publicly brought forward in 
the Republican State Convention of Illinois. Finally, in May, 
18G0, at the great rally of the Republican National Convention, 
which met at Chicago, Lincoln's name was coupled with those of 
Seward and Chase as the prominent candidates for nomination. 
After two or three ballots had been cast, the issue which has be- 
come historic gave Mr. Lincoln the unanimous nomination of the 
convention, and the election, following in order, sustained the 
choice, with that of the people at large, and the humble, unpre- 
tentious ' rail-splitter ' of early days became President of the 
United States, with Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, as vice-presi- 
dent]. 



ADDRESS AT PITTSBURG, PENN., FEB. 15, 1861. 

[The following speech was one among many others delivered by 
Mr. Lincoln, after his election to the Presidency, on his triumphal 
progress from Springfield, 111., to assume the reins of govern- 
ment at Washington. When the Republican victory was won, 
in the choice of Mr. Lincoln, the South, making the excuse of the 
election of " a sectional and minority President/' seceded from 
the Union, organized a confederate government, and seized upon 
Federal property. At this crisis, the President's journey to the 
Capital began, stops being made here and there to allow Mr. 
Lincoln to receive addresses of welcome, and, with some brief 
remarks, to acknowledge them. The subjoined is one of these 
addresses, in reply to the Mayor and citizens of Pittsburg, Pa. 
Naturally, allusion was made in his replies to the then dis- 
tracted state of the country, and here, at Pittsburg, he specially 
gives expression to his optimism in regard to events, and com- 
mends all to retain their self-possession and calmly abide the 
issues of things. The subject of the tariff, it will be seen, comes 
in for some remarks on the occasion]. 

I MOST cordially thank his Honor Mayor Wilson, and 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. £97 

the citizens of Pittsburg generally, for their flattering 
reception. I am the more grateful because I know that 
it is not given to me alone, but to the cause I represent, 
which clearly proves to me their good-will, and that 
sincere feeling is at the bottom of it. And here I may 
remark that in every short address I have made to the 
people, in every crowd through which I have passed of 
late, some allusion has been made to the {)resent dis- 
tracted condition of the country. It is natural to ex- 
pect that I should say something on this subject; but 
to touch upon it at all would involve an elaborate dis- 
cussion of a great many questions and circumstances, 
requiring more time than I can at present command, 
and would, perhaps, unnecessarily commit me upon 
matters which have not yet fully developed themselves. 
The condition of the country is an extraordinary one, 
and fills the mind of every patriot with anxiety. It is 
my intention to give this subject all the consideration I 
possibly can before specially deciding in regard to it, 
so that when I do speak it may be as nearly right as 
possible. Vrhen I do speak I hope I may say nothing 
in opposition to the spirit of the Constitution, contrary 
to the integrity of the Union, or which will prove ini- 
mical to the liberties of the people, or to the peace of 
the whole country. And, furthermore, when the time 
arrives for me to speak on this great subject, I hope 
I may say nothing to disappoint the people generally 
throughout the country, especially if the expectation 
has been based upon anything which I may have here- 
tofore said. Notwithstanding the troubles across the 
river [the speaker pointing southwardly across the 
Monongahela, and smiling], there is no crisis but an 
artificial one. What is there now to warrant the con- 
dition of affairs presented by our friends over the 
river? Take even their own view of the questions in- 
volved, and there is nothing to justify the course they 
are pursuing. I repeat, then, there is no crisis, except- 
ing such a one as may be gotten u^) at any time by tur- 



298 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

bulent men aided by designing politicans. My advice 
to them, under such circumstances, is to keep cool. 
If the great American people only keep their temper on 
both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, 
and the question which now distracts the country will 
be settled, just as surely as all other difficulties of a 
like character which have originated in this govern- 
ment have been adjusted. Let the people on both sides 
keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds 
have cleared away in due time, so will this great nation 
continue to prosper as heretofore. But, fellow-citizens, 
I have spoken longer on this subject than I intended at 
the outset. 

It is often said that the tariff is the specialty of 
Pennsylvania. Assuming that direct taxation is not to 
be adopted, the tariff question must be as durable as 
the government itself. It is a question of national 
housekeeping. It is to the government what replenish- 
ing the meal-tub is to the family. Ever-varying cir- 
cumstances will require frequent modifications as to 
the amount needed and the sources of supply. So far 
there is little difference of opinion among the people. 
It is as to whether, and how far, duties on imports 
shall be adjusted to favor home production in the home 
market, that controversy begins. One party insists 
that such adjustment oppresses one class for the ad- 
vantage of another; while the other party argues that, 
with all its incidents, in the long run all classes are 
benefited. In the Chicago platform there is a plank 
upon this subject which should be a general law to the 
incoming administration. We should do neither more 
nor less than we gave the people reason to believe we 
would when they gave us their votes. Permit me, fel- 
low-citizens, to read the tariff plank of the Chicago 
platform, or rather have it read in your hearing by 
one who has younger eyes. 

Mr. Lincoln's private secretary then read Section 12 
of the Chicago platform, as follows: 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



299 



That while providing revenue for the support of the General 
Government by duties upon imports, sound policj requires such 
an adjustment of these imposts as will encourage the develop- 
ment of the industrial interest of the whole country ; and we 
commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to 
working-men liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, 
to mechanics and manufacturers adequate reward for their skill, 
labor, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity 
and independence. 

Mr. Lincoln resumed: As with all general proposi- 
tions, doubtless there will be shades of difference in 
construing this. I have by no means a thoroughly ma- 
tured judgment upon this subject, especially as to de- 
tails; some general ideas are about all. I have long 
thought it v/ould be to our advantage to produce any 
necessary article at home which can be made of as good 
quality and with as little labor at home as abroad, at 
least by the difference of the carrying from abroad. In 
such case the carrying is demonstrably a dead loss of 
labor. For instance, labor being the true standard 
of value, is it not plain that if equal labor get a bar of 
railroad iron out of a mine in England, and another 
out of a mine in Pennsylvania, each can be laid down 
in a track at home cheaper than they could exchange 
countries, at least by the carriage? If there be a 
present cause why one can be both made and carried 
cheaper in money price than the other can be made 
without carrying, that cause is an unnatural and in- 
jurious one, and ought gradually, if not rapidly, to be 
removed. The condition of the treasury at this time 
would seem to render an early revision of the tariff 
indispensable. The Morill [tariff] bill, now pending 
before Congress, may or may not become a law. I am 
not posted as to its particular provisions, but if they 
are generally satisfactory, and the bill shall now pass, 
there will be an end for the present. If, however, it 
shall not pass, I suppose the whole subject will be one 
of the most pressing and important for the next Con- 
gress. By the Constitution, the executive may recom- 



300 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

mend measures which he may think proper, and he 
may veto those he thinks improper, and it is supposed 
that he may add to these certain indirect influences to 
affect the action of Congress. My political education 
strongly inclines me against a very free use of anj' of 
these means by the executive to control the legislation 
of the country. As a rule, I think it better that Con- 
gress should originate as well as perfect its measures 
without external bias. I therefore would rather recom- 
mend to every gentleman who knows he is to be a mem- 
ber of the next Congress to take an enlarged view, and 
post himself thoroughly, so as to contribute his part to 
such an adjustment of the tariff as shall produce a 
sufficient revenue, and in its other bearings, so far as 
possible, be just and equal to all sections of the country 
and classes of the people. 




Lincoln Portrait by Sartain 



SPEECHES OP ABRAHAil LINCOLN. 30I 



ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW 
YORK, AT ALBANY, N. Y., FEB. 18, 1861. 

[In the subjoined speech, one of those delivered on his journey 
from his Illinois home to the Capital, the president-elect returns 
thanks to the General Assembly of New York State for its greet- 
ings and warm reception. He speaks with becoming modesty of 
himself as the recipient of the united support of the great Em- 
pire State in the difficult task before him, in assuming the reins 
of government at a most critical juncture in the affairs of the 
Nation. Of the policy of the new government, he, as yet, wisely 
says nothing, as the time and place had not come for that. 
Meantime, he indicates that he is seeking diligently for light on 
the problems with which he must shortly deal, and promises that 
when ready to speak and act it shall be in the best interests of 
both sections of the country, South as well as North]. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the General As- 
semhly of the State of Neiv York: It is with feelings 
of great dififidence, and, I may say, with feelings of awe, 
])erhaps greater than I have recently experienced, that 
T meet you here in this place. The history of this great 
State, the renown of those great men who have stood 
here, and have spoken here, and been heard here, all 
crowd around my fancy, and incline me to shrink from 
any attempt to address you. Yet I have some confidence 
given me by the generous manner in which you have 
invited me, and by the still more generous manner in 
which you have received me, to speak further. You 
have invited and received me without distinction of 
party. I cannot for a moment suppose that this has 
been done in any considerable degree with reference to 
my personal services, but that it is done, in so far as 
I am regarded, at this time, as the representative of the 
majesty of this great nation. I doubt not this is the 
truth, and the whole truth, of the case, and this is as 
it should be. It is much more gratifying to me that 
this reception has been given to me as the elected 



302 SPEECHES OF ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 

representative of a free people, than it could possibly 
be if tendered merely as an evidence of devotion to me, 
or to any one man personally. 

And novk^ I think it were more fitting that I should 
close these hasty remarks. It is true that, while I hold 
myself, without mock modesty, the humblest of all 
individuals that have ever been elevated to the presi- 
dency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any 
one of them. 

You have generously tendered me the support — the 
united support — of the great Empire State. For this, 
in behalf of the nation — in behalf of the present and 
future of the nation — in behalf of civil and religious 
liberty for all time to come, most gratefully do I thank 
you. I do not propose to enter into an explanation of 
any particular line of policy, as to our present difficul- 
ties, to be adopted by the incoming administration. I 
deem it just to you, to myself, to all, that I should see 
everything, that I should hear everything, that I should 
have every light that can be brought within my reach, 
in order that, when I do so speak, I shall have enjoyed 
every opportunity to take correct and true ground; 
and for this reason I do not propose to speak at this 
time of the policy of the government. But when the 
time comes, I shall speak, as well as I am able, for the 
good of the present and future of this country — for the 
good both of the North and of the South — for the good 
of the one and the other, and of all sections of the coun- 
try. In the mean time, if we have patience, if we re- 
strain ourselves, if we allow ourselves not to run off in a 
passion, I still have confidence that the Almighty, the 
Maker of the universe, will, through the instrumen- 
tality of this great and intelligent people, bring us 
through this as he has through all the other difficulties 
of our country. Eelying on this, I again thank you for 
this generous reception. 



i 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 393 



ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILA- 
DELPHIA, FEB. 22, 1861. 

[Mr. Lincoln, in this Address, speaks feelingly, and, obviously, 
with impressive effect, on finding himself in the historic Hall 
" from which sprang the institutions under which we live," and 
over which he was on the occasion called upon to raise a flag 
to mark the recent admission of Kansas as a State of the Union. 
The day was the anniversary of Washington's birth, and the 
president-elect recalls with patriotic unction the efforts of those 
who had achieved independence, while he rejoices in the famous 
Declaration which gave liberty to the American people and hope 
to the world. The reference in the address to Mr. Lincoln's pur- 
pose, to seek to save the country at this grave juncture in its 
annals by loyal adherence to the principles enunciated in the 
Declaration of Independence, even at the cost of assassination, 
was suggested by the current rumors of intended personal as- 
sault upon the President, which it seems were but too well 
founded, and against which he was guarded by the vigilance of 
the National secret police]. 

Mr. Cui/ler: I am filled with deep emotion at finding 
myself standinsj in this place, where were collected to- 
gether the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to 
principle, from which sprang the institutions under 
which we live. You have kindl}' suggested to me that 
in my hands is the task of restoring peace to our dis- 
tracted country. I can say in return, sir, that all the 
political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so 
far as I have been able to draw them, from the senti- 
ments which originated in and were given to the world 
from this hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, 
that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in 
the Declaration of Independence. I have often pon- 
dered over the dangers which were incurred by the men 
who assembled here and framed and adopted that Dec- 
laration. I have pondered over the toils that were en- 
dured bv the officers and soldiers of the army who 



304: SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

achieved that independence. I have often inquired of 
myself what great principle or idea it was that kept 
this Confederacy so long together. It was not the 
mere matter of separation of the colonies from th? 
motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of 
Independence which gave liberty not alone to the peo- 
ple of this country, but hope to all the world, for all 
future time. It was that which gave promise that in 
due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders 
of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. 
This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of 
Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be 
saved on that basis? If it can, I will consider myself 
one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to 
save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it 
will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be 
saved without giving up that principle, I was about to 
say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than 
surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of 
affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is 
no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course ; 
and I may say in advance that there will be no blood- 
shed unless it is forced upon the government. The 
government will not use force, unless force is used 
against it. 

My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I 
did not expect to be called on to say a word when I 
came here. I supposed I was merely to do something 
toward raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said 
something indiscreet. [Cries of " No, no."] But I 
have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, 
if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 395 



ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF PENNSYL- 
VANIA, AT HARRISBURG, PA., FEB. 22, 1S61. 

[In this speech, addressed to the speakers and members of the 
General Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania, President Lin- 
coln, it will be observed, makes allusion to his engagement in 
the early functions of the day — the anniversary of Washington's 
birth — and of his visit to the historic Independence Hall. lie 
depreciates, it will be seen, the call for the services of the mili- 
tary arm of the Nation in the then crisis, and trusts that the oc- 
casion may not arise for its use, especially in shedding fraternal 
blood. He nevertheless expresses pleasure in relying u])on the 
military aid which the general government may expect from the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in any emergency that may arise, 
though the call for such, so far as wisdom may direct, shall not 
come through any fault or neglect of his]. 

Mr. Speaker of the Senate, and also Mr. Speaker of 
the House of Representatives, and Gentlemen of the 
General AssemMy of the State of Pcnnsi/lrania: I ap- 
pear before you only for a very few brief remarks in re- 
sponse to what has been said to me. I thank you most 
sincerely for this reception, and the generous words in 
which support has been promised me upon this oc- 
casion. I thank your great commonwealth for the over- 
whelming support it recently gave, not me personally, 
but the cause which I think a just one, in the late 
election. 

Allusion has been made to the fact — the interesting 
fact perhaps we should say — that I for the first time 
appear at the capital of the great commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania upon the birthday of the Father of his 
Country. In connection with that beloved anniver- 
sary connected with the history of this country, I have 
already gone through one exceedingly interesting scene 
this morning in the ceremonies at Philadelphia. 
Under the kind conduct of gentlemen there, I was for 
20 



306 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the first time allowed the privilege of standing in old 
Independence Hall to have a few words addressed to 
me there, and opening up to me an opportunity of mani- 
festing my deep regret that I had not more time to ex- 
press something of my own feelings excited by the oc^ 
casion, that had been really the feelings of my whole 
life. 

Besides this, our friends there had provided a mag- 
nificent flag of the country. They had arranged it so 
that I was given the honor of raising it to the head of 
its staff, and when it went up I was pleased that it went 
to its place by the strength of my own feeble arm. 
When, according to the arrangement, the cord was 
pulled, and it floated gloriously to the wind, without an 
accident, in the bright, glowing sunshine of the morn- 
ing, I could not help hoping that there was in the entire 
success of that beautiful ceremony at least something 
of an omen of what is to come. Nor could I help feel- 
ing then, as I have often felt, that in the whole of that 
proceeding I was a very humble instrument. I had 
not provided the flag; I had not made the arrange- 
ments for elevating it to its place; I had applied but a 
very small portion of even my feeble strength in raising 
it. In the whole transaction I was in the hands of the 
people who had arranged it, and if I can have the same 
generous cooperation of the people of this nation, I 
think the flag of our country may yet be kept flaunt- 
ing gloriously. 

I recur for a moment but to repeat some words ut- 
tered at the hotel in regard to what has been said about 
the military support which the General Government 
may expect from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania 
in a proper emergency. To guard against any pos- 
sible mistake do I recur to this. It is not with any 
pleasure that I contemplate the possibility that a 
necessity may arise in this country for the use of the 
military arm. While I am exceedingly gratified to 
see the manifestation upon your streets of your mill- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 307 

tary force here, and exceedingly gratified at your 
promise to use that force upon a proper emergency — ■ 
while I make these acknowledgments I desire to repeat, 
in order to preclude any possible misconstruction, that 
I do most sincerely hope that we shall have no use for 
them; that it will never become their duty to shed 
blood, and most especially never to shed fraternal 
blood. I promise that so far as I may have wisdom 
to direct, if so painful a result shall in any wise be 
brought about, it shall be through no fault of mine. 

Allusion has also been made by one of your honored 
speakers to some remarks recently made by myself at 
Pittsburg in regard to what is supposed to be the 
especial interest of this great commonwealth of Penn- 
sylvania. I now wish only to say in regard to that 
matter, that the few remarks which I uttered on that 
occasion were rather carefully worded. I took pains 
that they should be so. I have seen no occasion since 
to add to them or subtract from them. I leave them 
precisely as they stand, adding only now that I am 
pleased to have an expression from you, gentlemen of 
Pennsylvania, signifying that they are satisfactory to 
you. 

And now, gentlemen of the General Assembly of the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, allow me again to 
return to you my most sincere thanks. 



308. SPiiECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1861. 

[By the time the following memorable address was delivered, 
President Lincoln had reached Washington and been sworn into 
office as successor to President Buchanan. He had, moreover, 
organized hife government, calling to the Cabinet such influential 
men of the anti-slavery and national party as Seward, Chase, 
Blair, Welles, Cameron, Stanton, Caleb B. Smith, and Edward 
Bates. The Confederate government had also been organized, 
with Jefferson Davis as President, and Alex. H. Stevens as 
Vice-President; though actual hostilities had not as yet com- 
menced, if we except the grave menace of seizing Federal 
property, the investment in Charleston harbor of Fort Sum- 
ter, and holding and expressing disunion sentiments. A little 
more than a month later, came the firing on Fort Sumter, its 
surrender to the South Carolina troops, and the indignant rising 
and patriotic enthusiasm of the North, with the call to arms in 
support of the Union. 

Lincoln, as the choice of the nation for the presidency, was 
soon justified by the force of will, firmness, and justice which 
characterized Mr. Lincoln's every word and act; while he won all 
to him by his urbanity, modesty, approachableness, and the un- 
wearying care which he gave to the exacting duties of his oner- 
ous office. His ability and judgment, as well as his conciliatory 
manner and kindliness of mood, won over to him and the North- 
ern cause, of which he was the embodiment, even his old ad- 
versary. Judge S. A. Douglas, whose regretted death was soon 
now to occur. At the same time, Lincoln succeeded in gaining 
the support and confidence of all his Cabinet, and won the esteem 
and respect of so commanding a figure in the councils of the 
Nation as his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, who was 
compelled, on a notable occasion which shortly arose, to bow be- 
fore the President's will-power and ready, tactical resource. The 
Inaugural, it will be seen, is a remarkable and statesmanlike 
utterance, marked by an earnest appeal for unity and peace, 
despite its announcement of the law-abiding policy of the gov- 
ernment, and the placing of responsibility for any bloodshed upon 
those who should defy and resist Federal authority and engage 
in the breaking of the law]. 

Fellow-citizens of the United States: In compliance 
with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear 
before you to address you briefly, and to take in your 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 309 

presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the 
United States to be taken by the President " before he 
enters on the execution of his oflSce." 

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to 
discuss those matters of administration about which 
there is no special anxiety or excitement. 

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of 
the Southern States that by the accession of a Eepubli- 
can administration their property and their peace and 
personal security are to be endangered. There has 
never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. 
Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has 
all the while existed and been open to their inspection. 
It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him 
who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of 
those speeches when I declare that " I have no purpose, 
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution 
of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe 
I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclina- 
tion to do so." Those who nominated and elected me 
did so with full knowledge that I had made this and 
many similar declarations, and had never recanted 
them. And, more than this, they placed in the platform 
for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to 
me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now 
read : 

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the 
States, and especially the right of each State to order and control 
its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment ex- 
clusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the per- 
fection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we 
denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any 
State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the 
gravest of crimes. 

I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, 
I only press upon the public attention the most con- 
clusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that 
the property, peace, and»security of no section are to be 



310 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

in any wise endangered by the now incoming adminis- 
tration. I add, too, that all the protection which, 
consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can 
be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when 
lawfully demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully 
to one section as to another. 

There is much controversy about the delivering up 
of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now 
read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any 
other of its provisions : 

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or 
regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but 
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service 
or labor may be due. 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was 
intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of 
what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the 
lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear 
their support to the whole Constitution — to this pro- 
vision as much as to any other. To the proposition, 
then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of 
this clause " shall be delivered up," their oaths are 
unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in 
good temper, could they not with nearly equal un- 
animity frame and pass a law by means of which to 
keep good that unanimous oath? 

There is some difference of opinion whether this 
clause should be enforced by national or by State 
authority ; but surely that difference is not a very 
material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can 
be of but little consequence to him or to others by 
which authority it is done. And should any one in any 
case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a 
merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be 
kept? 

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the 
safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^n 

jurisprudence to be introduceJ, so that a free man be 
not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might 
it not be well at the same time to provide by law for 
the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution 
which guarantees that " the citizen of each State shall 
be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens 
in the several States"? 

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reser- 
vations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitu- 
tion or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I 
do not choose now to specify particular acts of Con- 
gress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will 
be much safer for all, both in official and private 
stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts 
which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, 
trusting to find impunity in having them held to be un- 
constitutional. 

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of 
a President under our National Constitution. During 
that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished 
citizens have, in succession, administered the executive 
branch of the government. They have conducted it 
through many perils, and generally with great success. 
Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon 
the same task for the brief constitutional term of four 
years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disrup- 
tion of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is 
now formidably attenapted. 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and 
of the Constitution, the Union of these States is per- 
petual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the 
fundamental law of all national governments. It is 
safe to assert that no government proper ever had a 
provision in its organic law for its own termination. 
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our 
National Constitution, and the Union will endure for- 
ever — it being impossible to destroy it except by some 
action not provided for in the instrument itself. 



312 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Again, if the United States be not a government 
proper, but an association of States in ttie nature of 
contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably 
unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One 
party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to 
speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind 
it? 

Descending from these general principles, we find 
the proposition that, in legal contemplation the Union 
is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union it- 
self. The Union is much older than the Constitution. 
It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association 
in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declara- 
tion of Independence in 177G, It was further matured, 
and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly 
plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, 
by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And, finally, 
in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining and 
establishing the Constitution was " to form a more per- 
fect Union." 

But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a 
part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union 
is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost 
the vital element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State upon its 
own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union ; 
that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally 
void; and that acts of violence, within any State or 
States, against the authority of the United States, are 
insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circum- 
stances. 

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the 
extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitu- 
tion itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of 
the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. 
Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part ; 
and I shall perform it so far as practicable, unless my 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 3^3 

rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold 
the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner 
direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded 
as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the 
Union that it will constitutionally defend and main- 
tain itself. 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or 
violence; and there- shall be none, unless it be forced 
upon the national authority. The power confided to 
me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the prop- 
erty and places belonging to the government, and to col- 
lect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be 
necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, 
no using of force against or among the people any- 
where. Where hostility to the United States, in any 
interior locality, shall be so great and universal as 
to prevent competent resident citizens from holding 
the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force 
obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. 
While the strict legal right may exist in the govern- 
ment to enforce the exercise of these offices, the at- 
tempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly 
impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego 
for the time the uses of such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- 
nished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the 
people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect 
security which is most favorable to calm thought and 
reflection. The course here indicated will be followed 
unless current events and experience shall show a modi- 
fication or change to be proper, and in every case and 
exigency my best discretion will be exercised accord- 
ing to circumstances actually existing, and with a view 
and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national 
troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies 
and affections. 

That there are persons in one section or another who 
seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of 



314 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLN. 

any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but 
if there be such, I need address no word to them. To 
those, however, who really love the Union may I not 
speak ? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the de- 
struction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, 
its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to 
ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard 
so desperate a step while there is any possibility that 
any portion of the ills you fly from have no real exis- 
tence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are 
greater than all the real ones you fly from — will you 
risk the commission of so fearful a mistake? 

All profess to be content in the Union if all con- 
stitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, 
that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has 
been denied? I think not. Happih^ the human mind 
is so constituted that no party can reach to the auda- 
city of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single in- 
stance in which a plainly written provision of the Con- 
stitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force 
of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any 
clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a 
moral point of view, justify revolution — certainly 
would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not 
our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of 
individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirma- 
tions and negations, guarantees and prohibitions, in 
the Constitution, that controversies never arise con- 
cerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed 
with a provision specifically applicable to every ques- 
tion which may occur in practical administration. No 
foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reason- 
able length contain, express provisions for all possible 
questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered 
by national or by State authority? The Constitution 
does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery 
in the Territories? The Constitution does not ex- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 3^5 

pressly sav. 3Iast Congress protect slavery in the 
Territories? The Constitution does not express!}- say. 

From questions of this class spring all our constitu- 
tional controversies, and we divide upon them into 
majorities and minorities. If the minority will not 
acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must 
cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing 
the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. 

If a minority in such case will secede rather than 
acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will 
divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will 
secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be 
controlled by such minority. For instance, why may 
not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two 
hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions 
of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All 
who cherish disunion sentiments are now being edu- 
cated to the exact temper of doing this. 

Is there such perfect identity of interest among the 
States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony 
only, and prevent renewed secession? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of 
anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitu- 
tional checks and limitations, and always changing 
easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and 
sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. 
Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or 
to despotism. Unanimity is impossible ; the rule of a 
minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly in- 
admissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, 
anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left. 

I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that 
constitutional questions are to be decided by the Su- 
preme Court ; nor do I deny that such decisions must be 
binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to 
the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to 
very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases 
by all other departments of the government. And while 



31g SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

it is obviously possible that such decision may be 
erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect follow- 
ing it, being limited to that particular case, with the 
chance that it may be overruled and never become a 
precedent for other cases, can better be borne than 
could the evils of a different practice. At the same 
time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy 
of the government, upon vital questions affecting the 
whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of 
the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in 
ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, 
the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, hav- 
ing to that extent practically resigned their government 
into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there 
in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. 
It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide 
cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault 
of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to poli- 
tical purposes. 

One section of our country believes slavery is right, 
and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is 
wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only 
substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the 
Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the 
foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, 
as any law can ever be in a community where the moral 
sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. 
The great body of the people abide by the dry legal 
obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. 
This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would 
be worse in both cases after the separation of the sec- 
tions than before. The foreign slave-trade, now im- 
perfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, 
without restriction, in one section, while fugitive 
slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be 
surrendered at all by the other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. g^Yi 

build an impassable wall between them. A husband 
and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence 
and beyond the reach of each other; but the different 
parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but 
remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable 
or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, 
then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or 
more satisfactory after separation than before? Can 
aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? 
Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens 
than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, 
you cannot fight always ; and when, after much loss on 
both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, 
the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse 
are again upon you. 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary 
of the existing government, they can exercise their 
constitutional right of amending it, or their revolu- 
tionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot 
be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic 
citizens are desirous of having the National Constitu- 
tion amended. While I make no recommendation of 
amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority 
of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in 
either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; 
and I should, under existing circumstances, favor 
rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded 
the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that 
to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that 
it allows amendments to originate with the people 
themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or 
reject propositions originated by others not especially 
chosen for the purpose, and which might not be pre- 
cisely such as they would wish to either accept or re- 
fuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Con- 
stitution — which amendment, however, I have not seen 
— has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal 



318 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Government shall never interfere with the domestic 
institutions of the States, including that of persons 
held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I 
have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of 
particular amendments so far as to say that, holding 
such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, 
I have no objection to its being made express and 
irrevocable. 

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from 
the people, and they have conferred none upon him to 
fix terms for the separation of the States. The people 
themselves can do this also if they choose; but the 
executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His 
duty is to administer the present government, as it 
came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by 
him, to his successor. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the 
ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or 
equal hope in the world? In our present differences is 
either party without faith of being in the right? If 
the Almighty Kuler of Nations, with his eternal truth 
and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours 
of the South, that truth and that justice will surely 
prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the 
American people. 

By the frame of the government under which we live, 
this same people have wisely given their public servants 
but little power for mischief; and have, with equal 
wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their 
own hands at very short intervals. While the people 
retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, 
by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seri- 
ously injure the government in the short space of four 
J^ears. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost 
by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of 
you in hot haste to a step which you would never take 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 3^9 

deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking 
time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. 
Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old 
Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, 
the laws of your own framing under it; while the new 
administration will have no immediate power, if it 
would, to change either. If it were admitted that you 
who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, 
there still is no single good reason for precipitate 
action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a 
firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this 
favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best 
way all our present difficulty. 

In 3'our hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. You can have no 
conflict without being 3'ourselves the aggressors. You 
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the govern- 
ment, v>'hile I shall have the most solemn one to '' pre- 
serve, protect, and defend it." 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. 
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every 
battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely 
they will be, by the better angels of our nature. 



320 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, CONVENED IN 
SPECIAL SESSION, JULY 4, 1861. 

[The occasion for summoning Congress in special session at this 
juncture was, as all know, the seceding of ten States from the 
Union, the organization of the Confederate Government, together 
with the seizure by the seceding States of United States forts 
and arsenals, the consequent defiance of Federal authority and 
the power of the general government, and the determined resort 
to hostilities on the part of the aggressing South. In the syn- 
opsis here given of the Message, Mr. Lincoln justifies the resort 
to arms in defense of the Union, forced upon the country by the 
attitude and acts of the South. Disintegration of the Union he 
cannot tolerate, consistent with his oath of office and loyalty to 
the Constitution ; nor can he refrain from denying and repudi- 
ating the Confederate right of Secession; and hence the duty 
which devolved upon him to resist and combat the formidable 
internal attempt to overthrow the Republic, even by employing 
the war power of the Nation for its maintenance and the reas- 
sertion of the Federal authority]. 

Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Represen- 
tatives: Having been convened on an extraordinary oc- 
casion, as authorized by the Constitution, your at- 
tention is not called to any ordinary subject of legis- 
lation. 

At the beginning of the present presidential term, 
four months ago, the functions of the Federal Govern- 
ment were found to be generally suspended within the 
several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only 
those of the Post-office Department. 

Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dock- 
yards, customhouses, and the like, including the mov- 
able and stationary property in and about them, had 
been seized, and were held in open hostility to this 
government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and 
Jefiferson, on and near the Florida coast, and Fort 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 32I 

Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The 
forts thus seized had been put in improved condition, 
new ones had been built, and armed forces had been 
organized and were organizing, all avowedly with the 
same hostile purpose. 

The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal 
Government in and near these States were either be- 
sieged or menaced by warlike preparations, and espec- 
ially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by well-pro- 
tected hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to 
the best of its own, and outnumbering the latter as 
perhaps ten to one. A disproportionate share of the 
Federal muskets and rifles had somehow found their 
way into these States, and had been seized to be used 
against the government. Accumulations of the public 
revenue lying within them had been seized for the same 
object. The navy was scattered in distant seas, leav- 
ing but a very small part of it within the immediate 
reach of the government. Officers of the Federal army 
and navy had resigned in great numbers; and of those 
resigning a large proportion had taken up arms against 
the government. Simultaneously, and in connection 
with all this, the purpose to sever the Federal Union 
was openly avowed. In accordance with this purpose, 
an ordinance had been adopted in each of these States, 
declaring the States respectively to be separated from 
the National Union. A formula for instituting a com- 
bined government of these States had been promul- 
gated; and this illegal organization, in the character of 
confederate States, was already invoking recognition, 
aid, and intervention from foreign powers. 

Finding this condition of things, and believing it to 
be an imperative duty upon the incoming executive to 
prevent, if possible, the consummation of such attempt 
to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to 
that end became indispensable. This choice was made 
and was declared in the inaugural address. The policy 
chosen looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful meas- 
21 



322 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ures before a resort to any stronger ones. It sought 
only to hold the public places and property not al- 
ready wrested from the government, and to collect the 
revenue, relying for the rest on time, discussion, and 
the ballot-box. It promised a continuance of the mails, 
at government expense, to the very people who were 
resisting the government ; and it gave repeated pledges 
against any disturbance to any of the people, or any 
of their rights. Of all that which a President might 
constitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, every- 
thing was forborne without which it was believed pos- 
sible to keep the government on foot. 

On the 5th of March (the present incumbent's first 
full day in oflSce), a letter of Major Anderson, com- 
manding at Fort Sumter, written on the 28th of 
February and received at the War Department on the 
4th of March, v/as by that department placed in his 
hands. This letter expressed the professional opinion 
of the writer that reinforcements could not be thrown 
into that fort within the time for his relief, rendered 
necessary by the limited supply of provisions, and with 
a view of holding possession of the same, with a force 
of less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined 
men. This opinion was concurred in by all the officers 
of his command, and their memoranda on the subject 
were made inclosures of Major Anderson's letter. The 
whole was immediately laid before Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral Scott, who at once concurred with Major Ander- 
son in opinion. On reflection, however, he took full 
time, consulting with other officers, both of the army 
and the navy, and at the end of four days came reluc- 
tantly but decidedly to the same conclusion as before. 
He also stated at the same time that no such sufficient 
force was then at the control of the government, or 
could be raised and brought to the ground within the 
time when the provisions in the fort would be ex- 
hausted. In a purely military point of view, this re- 
duced the duty of the administration in the case to 



i 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLX. 303 

the mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of 
the fort. 

It was believed, however, that to so abandon that 
position, under the circumstances, would be utterly 
ruinous; that the necessity under which it was to be 
done would not be fully understood; that by many it 
would be construed as a part of a voluntary policy; 
that at home it would discourage the friends of the 
Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure 
to the latter a recognition abroad; that, in fact, it 
would be our national destruction consummated. This 
could not be allowed. Starvation was not yet upon 
the garrison, and ere it would be reached Fort Pickens 
might be reinforced. This last would be a clear indi- 
cation of policy, and would better enable the country 
to accept the evacuation of Fort Sumter as a military 
necessity. An order was at once directed to be sent 
for th^ landing of the troops from the steamship Brook- 
h/n into Fort Pickens. This order could not go by 
land, but must take the longer and slower route by sea. 
The first return news from the order was received just 
one week before the fall of Fort Sumter. The news it- 
self was that the officer commanding the Sahine, to 
which vessel the troops had been transferred from the 
Brooklyn, acting upon some quasi armistice of the late 
administration (and of the existence of v/hich the 
present administration, up to the time the order was 
despatched, had only too vague and uncertain rumors 
to fix attention), had refused to land the troops. To 
now reinforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be 
reached at Fort Sumter was impossible — rendered so 
by the near exhaustion of provisions in the latter- 
named fort. In precaution against such a conjuncture, 
the government had, a few days before, commenced 
preparing an expedition as well adapted as might be 
to relieve Fort Sumter, which expedition was intended 
to be ultimately used, or not, according to circum- 
stances. The strongest anticipated case for using it 



324: SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

was now presented, and it was resolved to send it 
forward. As had been intended in this contingency, it 
was also resolved to notify the governor of South 
Carolina that he might expect an attempt would be 
made to provision the fort; and that, if the attempt 
should not be resisted, there would be no effort to throw 
in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, 
or in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was 
accordingly given ; whereupon the fort was attacked 
and bombarded to its fall, without even awaiting the 
arrival of the provisioning expedition. 

It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction 
of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-de- 
fense on the part of the assailants. They well knew 
that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility 
commit aggression upon them. They knew — they were 
expressly notified — that the giving of bread to the few 
brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which 
would on that occasion be attempted, unless them- 
selves, by resisting so much, should provoke more. 
They knew that this government desired to keep the 
garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but merely to 
maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the 
Union from actual and immediate dissolution — trust- 
ing, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion, and 
the ballot-box for final adjustment; and they assailed 
and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object — 
to drive out the visible authority of the Federal Union, 
and thus force it to immediate dissolution. That this 
was their object the executive well understood; and 
having said to ihem in the inaugural address, " You 
can have no conflict without being yourselves the ag- 
gressors," he took pains not only to keep this declara- 
tion good, but also to keep the case so free from the 
power of ingenious sophistry that the world should not 
be able to misunderstand it. By the affair at Fort Sum- 
ter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point 
was reached. Then, and thereby the assailants, of the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 335 

government began the conflict of arms, without a gun 
in sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only 
the few in the fort sent to that harbor years before 
for their own protection, and still ready to give that 
protection in whatever was lawful. In this act, dis- 
carding all else, they have forced upon the country the 
distinct issue, " immediate dissolution or blood." 

And this issue embraces more than the fate of these 
United States. It presents to the whole family of man 
the question whether a constitutional republic or 
democracy — a government of the people by the same 
people — can or cannot maintain its territorial integ- 
rity against its own domestic foes. It presents the 
question whether discontented individuals, too few in 
numbers to control administration according to organic 
law in any case, can alwaj's, upon the pretenses made 
in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily 
without any pretense, break up their government, and 
thus practically put an end to free government upon 
the earth. It forces us to ask : "• Is there, in all re- 
publics, this inherent and fatal weakness?" "Must 
a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liber- 
ties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own 
existence? " 

So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call 
out the war power of the government ; and so to resist 
force employed for its destruction, by force for its 
preservation. 

The call was made, and the response of the country 
was most gratifying, surpassing in unanimity and 
spirit the most sanguine expectation. Yet none of the 
States commonly called slave States, except Delaware, 
gave a regiment through regular State organization. 
A few regiments have been organized within some 
others of those States by individual enterprise, and 
received into the government service. Of course the 
seceded States, so called (and to which Texas had been 
joined about the time of the inauguration), gave no 



326 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

troops to the cause of the Union. The border States, 
so called, were not uniform in their action, some of 
them being almost for the Union, while in others — as 
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas — 
the Union sentiment was nearly repressed and silenced. 
The course taken in Virginia was the most remarkable 
— perhaps the most important. A convention elected 
by the people of that State to consider this very ques- 
tion of disrupting the Federal Union was in session 
at the capital of Virginia when Fort Sumter fell. 
To this body the people had chosen a large majority 
of professed Union men. Almost immediately after 
the fall of Sumter, many members of that majority 
went over to the original disunion minority, and with 
them adopted an ordinance for withdrawing the State 
from the Union. Whether this change was wrought 
by their great approval of the assault upon Sumter, or 
their great resentment at the government's resistance 
to that assault, is not definitely known. Although they 
submitted the ordinance for ratification to a vote of 
the people, to be taken on a day then somewhat more 
than a month distant, the convention and the legis- 
lature (which was also in session at the same time and 
place), with leading men of the State not members of 
either, immediately commenced acting as if the State 
were already out of the Union. They pushed military 
preparations vigorously forward all over the State. 
They seized the United States armory at Harper's 
Ferry, and the navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk. 
They received — perhaps invited — into their State large 
bodies of troops, with their warlike appointments, 
from the so-called seceded States. They formally 
entered into a treaty of temporary alliance and co- 
operation with the so-called " Confederate States," and 
sent members to their congress at Montgomery. And, 
finally, they permitted the insurrectionary government 
to be transferred to their capital at Richmond. 

The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 327. 

insurrection to make its nest within her borders; and 
this government has no choice left but to deal with it 
where it finds it. And it has the less regret as the loyal 
citizens have, in due form, claimed its protection. 
Those loyal citizens this government is bound to recog- 
nize and protect, as being Virginia. 

In the border States, so called, — in fact, the Middle 
States, — there are those who favor a policy which they 
call "armed neutrality"; that is, an arming of those 
States to prevent the Union forces passing one way, or 
the disunion the other, over their soil. This would 
be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it 
would be the building of an impassable wall along the 
line of separation — and yet not quite an impassable 
one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie the 
hands of Union men and freely pass supplies from 
among them to the insurrectionists, which it could 
not do as an open enemy. At a stroke it would take 
all the trouble off the hands of secession, except only 
what proceeds from the external blockade. It would 
do for the disunionists that which, of all things, they 
most desire — feed them well, and give them disunion 
without a struggle of their own. It recognizes no 
fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain 
the Union ; and while very many who have favored it 
are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very in- 
jurious in effect. 

Recurring to the action of the government, it may 
be stated that at first a call was made for 75,000 
militia; and, rapidly following this, a proclamation 
was issued for closing the ports of the insurrectionary 
districts by proceedings in the nature of blockade. So 
far all was believed to be strictly legal. At this point 
the insurrectionists announced their purpose to enter 
upon the practice of privateering. 

Other calls were made for volunteers to serve for 
three years, unless sooner discharged, and also for 
large additions to the regular army and navy. These 



328 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured 
upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand 
and a public necessity; trusting then, as now, that 
Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed 
that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional 
competency of Congress. 

Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered 
a duty to authorize the commanding general in proper 
cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the priv- 
ilege of the writ of haheas corpus, or, in other words, 
to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary 
processes and forms of law, such individuals as he 
might deem dangerous to the public safety. This 
authority has purposely been exercised but very spar- 
ingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of 
what has been done under it are questioned, and the 
attention of the country has been called to the proposi- 
tion that one who has sworn to " take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed " should not himself vio- 
late them. Of course some consideration was given to 
the questions of power and propriety before this matter 
was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were 
required to be faithfully executed were being resisted 
and failing of execution in nearly one-third of the 
States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execu- 
tion, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of 
the means necessary to their execution some single 
law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen's 
liberty that, practically, it relieves more of the guilty 
than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent 
be violated? To state the question more directly, are 
all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the govern- 
ment itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even 
in such a case, would not the ofiicial oath be broken if 
the government should be overthrown, when it was 
believed that disregarding the single law would tend 
to preserve it? But it was not believed that this ques- 
tion was presented. It was not believed that any law 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 329 

was violated. The provision of the Constitution that 
" the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not 
be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or in- 
vasion, the public safety may require it," is equivalent 
to a provision — is a provision — that such privilege mi\y 
be suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the 
public safety does require it. It was decided that we 
have a case of rebellion, and that the public safety 
does require the qualified suspension of the privilege 
of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now it 
is insisted that Congress, and not the executive, is 
vested with this power. But the Constitution itself is 
silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and 
as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous 
emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the in^ 
strument intended that in every case the danger should 
run its course until Congress could be called together, 
the very assembling of which might be prevented, as 
was intended in this case, by the rebellion, 

No more extended argument is now offered, as an 
opinion at some length will probably be presented by 
the attorney-general. Whether there shall be any legis- 
lation upon the subject, and if any, what, is submitted 
entirely to the better judgment of Congress. 

The forbearance of this government had been so 
extraordinary and so long continued as to lead some 
foreign nations to shape their action as if they sup- 
posed the early destruction of our National Union was 
probable. While this, on discovery, gave the executive 
some concern, he is now happy to say that the sov- 
ereignty and rights of the United States are now every- 
where practically respected by foreign powers; and a 
general sympathy with the country is manifested 
throughout the world. 

The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, 
and the Navy will give the information in detail deemed 
necessary and convenient for your deliberation and 
action; while the executive and all the departments 



330 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

will stand ready to supply omissions, or to communi- 
cate new facts considered important for you to know. 

It is now recommended that you give the legal means 
for making this contest a short and decisive one: that 
you place at the control of the government for the work 
at least four hundred thousand men and |400,000,000. 
That number of men is about one tenth of those of 
proper ages within the regions where, apparently, all 
are willing to engage; and the sum is less than a 
twenty-third part of the money value owned by the 
men who seem ready to devote the whole. A debt of 
$600,000,000 now is a less sum per head than was the 
debt of our Revolution when we came out of that strug- 
gle ; and the money value in the country now bears even 
a greater proportion to what it was then than does the 
population. Surely each man has as strong a motive 
now to preserve our liberties as each had then to 
establish them. 

A right result at this time will be worth more to the 
world than ten times the men and ten times the money. 
The evidence reaching us from the country leaves no 
doubt that the material for the work is abundant, and 
that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it 
legal sanction, and the hand of the executive to give 
it practical shape and efficiency. One of the greatest 
perplexities of the government is to avoid receiving 
troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, 
the people will save their government if the government 
itself will do its part only indifferently well. 

It might seem, at first thought, to be of little dif- 
ference whether the present movement at the South be 
called " secession " or " rebellion." The movers, how- 
ever, well understand the difference. At the beginning 
they knew they could never raise their treason to any 
respectable magnitude by any name which implies viola- 
tion of law. They knew their people possessed as much 
of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, 
and as much pride in and reverence for the history and 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 33^^^ 

government of their common country as any other civi- 
lized and patriotic people. They knew they could 
make no advancement directly in the teeth of these 
strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly, they com- 
menced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. 
The}' invented an ingenious sophism which, if conceded, 
was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the 
incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. 
The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may 
consistently with the National Constitution, and there- 
fore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union 
without the consent of the Union or of any other 
State. The little disguise that the supposed right is to 
be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the 
sole judges of its justice, is too thin to merit any notice. 

With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have been 
drugging the public mind of their section for more than 
thirty years, and until at length they have brought 
many good men to a willingness to take up arms 
against the government the day after some assemblage 
of men have enacted the farcical pretense of taking 
their State out of the Union, who could have been 
brought to no such thing the day before. 

This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its 
currency from the assumption that there is some omni- 
potent and sacred supremacy pertaining to a State — 
to each State of our Federal Union. Our States have 
neither more nor less power than that reserved to 
them in the Union by the Constitution — no one of 
them ever having been a State out of the Union. The 
original ones passed into the Union even before they 
cast off their British colonial dependence; and the new 
ones each came into the Union directly from a con- 
dition of dependence, excepting Texas. And even 
Texas, in its temporary independence, was never desig- 
nated a State. The new ones only took the designation 
of States on coming into the Union, while that name 
Wds first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declara- 



332 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tion of Indppendence. Therein the '^ United Colonies " 
were declared to be " free and independent States " ; 
but even then the object plainly was not to declare their 
independence of one another or of the Union, but 
directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their 
mutual action before, at the time, and afterward, 
abundantly show. The express plighting of faith b}^ 
each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles 
of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall 
be perpetual, is most conclusive. Having never been 
States either in substance or in name outside of the 
Union, whence this magical omnipotence of " State 
Rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy 
the Union itself? Much is said about the "sov- 
ereignty " of the States ; but the word even is not in the 
National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the 
State constitutions. What is " sovereignty " in the 
political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to 
define it "■ a political community without a political 
superior "? Tested by this, no one of our States except 
Texas ever was a sovereignty. And even Texas gave 
up the character on coming into the Union ; hj which 
act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United 
States, and the laws and treaties of the United States 
made in pursuance of the Constitution, to be for her the 
supreme law of the land. The States have their status 
in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If 
they break from this, they Can only do so against law 
and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves 
separately, procured their independence and their 
liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union gave each 
of them whatever of independence or liberty it has. 
The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, 
it created them as States. Originally some dependent 
colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the Union threw 
off their old dependence for them, and made them 
States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a 
State constitution independent of the Union. Of 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 333 

course, it is not forgotten that all the new States 
framed their constitutions before they entered the 
Union — nevertheless, dependent upon and preparatory 
to coming into the Union. 

Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights 
reserved to them in and by the National Constitution ; 
but among these surely are not included all conceivable 
powers, however mischievous or destructive, but, at 
most, such only as were known in the world at the time 
as governmental powers; and certainly a power to 
destroy the government itself had never been known as 
a governmental, as a merely administrative power. 
This relative matter of national power and State 
rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of 
generality and locality. Whatever concerns the whole 
should be confided to the whole — to the General Govern- 
ment; while whatever concerns onl3^ the State should 
be left exclusively to the State. This is all there is of 
original principle about it. Whether the National 
Constitution in defining boundaries between the two 
has applied the principle with exact accuracy, is not to 
be questioned. We are all bound by that defining, 
without question. 

What is now combated is the position that secession 
is consistent with the Constitution — is lawful and 
peaceful. It is not contended that there is any express 
law for it; and nothing should ever be implied as law 
which leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The 
nation purchased with money the countries out of 
which several of these States were formed. Is it just 
that they shall go off without leave and without re- 
funding? The nation paid very large sums (in the 
aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to re- 
lieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes. Is it just that 
she shall now be off without consent or without mak- 
ing any return? The nation is now in debt for money 
applied to the benefit of these so-called seceding States 
in common with the rest. Is it just either that credl- 



334: SPEECHES OF :A.BRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tors shall go unpaid or the remaining States pay the 
whole? A part of the present national debt was con- 
tracted to pay the old debts of Texas. Is it just that 
she shall leave and pay no part of this herself? 

Again, if one State may secede, so may another ; ana 
when all shall have seceded, none is left to pay the 
debts. Is this quite just to creditors? Did we notify 
them of this sage view of ours when we borrowed their 
money? If we now recognize this doctrine by allow- 
ing the seceders to go in peace, it is diflScult to see what 
we can do if others choose to go or to extort terms 
upon which they will promise to remain. 

The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of 
secession. They have assumed to make a national con- 
stitution of their own, in which of necessity they have 
either discarded or retained the right of secession as 
they insist it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, 
they thereby admit that on principle it ought not to be 
in ours. If they have retained it by their own con- 
struction of ours, they show that to be consistent they 
must secede from one another whenever they shall find 
it the easiest way of settling their debts, or effecting any 
other selfish or unjust object. The principle itself is 
one of disintegration, and upon which no government 
can possibly endure. 

If all the States save one should assert the power 
to drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the 
whole class of seceder politicians would at once deny 
the power and denounce the act as the greatest out- 
rage upon State rights. But suppose that precisely the 
same act, instead of being called " driving the one out," 
should be called " the seceding of the others from that 
one," it would be exactly what the seceders claim to do, 
unless, indeed, they make the point that the one, 
because it is a minority, may rightfully do what the 
others, because they are a majority, may not rightfully 
do. These politicians are subtle and profound on the 
rights of minorities. They are not partial to that 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 335 

power which made the Constitution and speaks from 
the preamble calling itself " We, the People." 

It may well be questioned whether there is to-day a 
majority of the legally qualified voters of any State, 
except perhaps South Carolina, in favor of disunion. 
There is much reason to believe that the Union men 
are the majority in many, if not in every other one, of 
the so-called seceded States. The contrary has not 
been demonstrated in any one of them. It is ventured 
to affirm this even of Virginia and Tennessee; for the 
result of an election held in military camps, where the 
bayonets are all on one side of the question voted 
upon, can scarcely be considered as demonstrating 
popular sentiment. At such an election, all that large 
class who are at once for the Union and against 
coercion would be coerced to vote against the Union. 

It may be affirmed without extravagance that the free 
institutions we enjoy have developed the powers and 
improved the condition of our whole people beyond any 
example in the world. Of this we now have a striking 
and an impressive illustration. So large an army as 
the government has now on foot was never before 
known, without a soldier in it but who has taken his 
place there of his own free choice. But more than this, 
there are many single regiments whose members, one 
and another, possess full practical knowledge of all 
the arts, sciences, professions, and whatever else, 
whether useful or elegant, is known in the world ; and 
there is scarcely one from which there could not be 
selected a President, a cabinet, a congress, and perhaps 
a court, abundantly competent to administer the 
government itself. Nor do I say this is not true also 
in the army of our late friends, now adversaries in this 
contest; but if it is, so much better the reason why the 
government which has conferred such benefits on both 
them and us should not be broken up. Whoever in any 
section proposes to abandon such a government would 
do well to consider in deference to what principle it is 



336 SPEECPIES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that he does it — what better he is likely to get in its 
Btead — whether the substitute will give, or be in- 
tended to give, so much of good to the people? There 
are some foreshadowings on this subject. Our adver- 
saries have adopted some declarations of independence 
in which, unlike the good old one, penned by Jefferson, 
they omit the words " all men are created equal." 
Why? They have adopted a temporary national con- 
stitution, in the preamble of which, unlike our good 
old one, signed by Washington, they omit " We, the 
People," and substitute, " We, the deputies of the sov- 
ereign and independent States." Why? Why this 
deliberate pressing out of view the rights of men and 
the authority of the people? 

This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of 
the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world 
that form and substance of government whose leading 
object is to elevate the condition of men — to lift arti- 
ficial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of 
laudable pursuit for all ; to afford all an unfettered 
start, and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding 
to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, 
this is the leading object of the government for whose 
existence we contend. 

I am most happy to believe that the plain people 
understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note 
that while in this, the government's hour of trial, 
large numbers of those in the army and navy who have 
been favored with the offices have resigned and proved 
false to the hand which had pampered them, not one 
common soldier or common sailor is known to have 
deserted his flag. 

Great honor is due to those officers who remained 
true, despite the example of their treacherous asso- 
ciates; but the greatest honor, and most important fact 
of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers 
and common sailors. To the last man, so far as known, 
they have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LI^^COLN". 337 

of those whose commands, but an hour before, they 
obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct 
of the plain people. They understand, without an arg-d- 
ment, that the destroying of the government which was 
made by Washington means no good to them. 

Our popular government has often been called an 
experiment. Two points in it our people have already 
settled — the successful establishing and the successful 
administering of it. One still remains — its successful 
maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to 
overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to 
the world that those who can fairly carry an election 
can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the right- 
ful and peaceful successors of bullets; and that when 
ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there 
can be no successful appeal back to bullets ; that there 
can be no successful appeal, except to ballots them- 
selves, at succeeding elections. Such will be a great 
lesson of peace : teaching men that what they cannot 
take by an election, neither can they take it by a war; 
teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war. 

Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid 
men as to what is to be the course of the government 
toward the Southern States after the rebellion shall 
have been supj)ressed, the executive deems it proper to 
say it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by 
the Constitution and the laws; and that he probably 
will have no different understanding of the powers and 
duties of the Federal Government relatively to the 
rights of the States and the people, under the Constitu- 
tion, than that expressed in th.e inaugural address. 

He desires to preserve the government, that it may 
be administered for all as it was administered by the 
men who made it. Loyal citizens everywhere have the 
right to claim this of their government, and the govern- 
ment has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not 
perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any 
22 



338 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

conquest, or any subjugation, in any just sense of those 
terms. 

The Constitution provides, and all the States have 
accepted the provision, that " the United States shall 
guarantee to every State in this Union a republican 
form of government." But if a State may lawfully go 
out of the Union, having done so, it may also discard 
the republican form of government ; so that to prevent 
its going out is an indispensable means to the end of 
maintaining the guarantee mentioned; and when an 
end is lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means 
to it are also lawful and obligatory. 

It was with the deepest regret that the executive 
found the duty of employing the w^ar power in defense 
of the government forced upon him. He could but per- 
form this duty or surrender the existence of the govern- 
ment. No compromise by public servants could, in 
this case, be a cure; not that compromises are not often 
proper, but that no popular government can long 
survive a marked precedent that those who carry an 
election can only save the government from immediate 
destruction by giving up the main point upon which 
the people gave the election. The people themselves, 
and not their servants, can safely reverse their own 
deliberate decisions. 

As a private citizen the executive could not have 
consented that these institutions shall perish; much 
less could he, in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a 
trust as the free people have confided to him. He felt 
that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count 
the chances of his own life in what might follow. In 
full view of his great responsibility he has, so far, done 
what he has deemed his duty. You will now, accord- 
ing to your own judgment, perform yours. He sincerely 
hopes that your views and your actions may so accord 
with his, as to assure all faithful citizens who have been 
disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy res- 
toration to them, under the Constitution and the laws. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 339 

And having- thus chosen our course, without guile 
and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, 
and go forward without fear and with manly hearts. 

Abraham Lincoln. 

July 4, 1861. 



PROCLAMATION OF A NATIONAL FAST-DAY, 
AUG. 12, 1861. 

Whereas a joint committee of both Houses of Con- 
gress has waited on the President of the United States 
and requested him to " recommend a day of public 
prayer, humiliation, and fasting, to be observed by the 
people of the United States with religious solemnities, 
and the offering of fervent supplications to Almighty 
God for the safety and welfare of these States, his 
blessings on their arms, and a speedy restoration of 
peace " : 

And whereas it is fit and becoming in all people, at 
all times, to acknowledge and revere the supreme 
government of God; to bow in humble submission to 
his chastisements; to confess and deplore their sins and 
transgressions, in the full conviction that the fear of 
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ; and to pray with 
all fervency and contrition for the pardon of their past 
offenses, and for a blessing upon their present and 
prospective action : 

And whereas when our own beloved country, once, by 
the blessing of God, united, prosperous, and happy, is 
now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly 
fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible 
visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own 
faults and crimes as a "nation and as individuals, to 
humble ourselves before him and to pray for his mercy 



340 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

— to pray that we may be spared further punishment, 
though most justly deserved; that our arms may be 
blessed and made effectual for the reestablishment of 
law, order, and peace throughout the wide extent of our 
country; and that the inestimable boon of civil and 
religious liberty, earned under his guidance and bless- 
ing by the labors and sufferings of our fathers, may 
be restored in all its original excellence: 

Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
United States, do appoint the last Thursday in Sep- 
tember next as a day of humiliation, pra3'er, and fast- 
ing for all the people of the nation. And I do earnestly 
recommend to all the people, and especially to all 
ministers and teachers of religion, of all denominations, 
and to all heads of families, to observe and keep that 
day, according to their several creeds and modes of 
worship, in all humility and with all religious solem- 
nity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation 
may ascend to the Throne of Grace, and bring down 
plentiful blessings upon our country. 

(Signed) Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President: Wm. H, Seward, 
Secretary of State. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 34^ 



ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, DEC. 3, 1861. 

[In this message addressed to Congress, the substance of which 
is here given. President Lincoln contends that the War of the 
Rebellion is one waged " upon the first principle of popular 
goA'ernment — the rights of the people." Be this as it may, the 
period was a dark and perplexing one at the North, for the 
Trent affair had just happened, and there was danger of war 
with England, which nation had, with France, recognized the 
Confederates as belligerents. The South, moreover, was jubilant 
over Bull Run and the panic that ensued, and actively aggressive 
in other sections where its forces were operating; while the 
Northern capital, it was then feared, was not safe from Southern 
attack. Thanks to Lincoln's wisdom and courage, and to the 
patriotic backing of the people of the North, the ominous out- 
look passed for the time being and the country breathed more 
freely, as it was assured bj' the President that the cause of tlie 
Union was steadily and surely advancing. The war, however, 
though few comparatively as yet thought so or admitted, was to 
be a long and disastrous one, particularly until the coming of 
General Grant, whose military genius was to crown Northern 
armies with well-won laurels and do much to restore and reunite 
the riven Republic]. 

Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Represen- 
tatives: In the midst of unprecedented political 
troubles we have cause of great gratitude to God for 
unusual good health and most abundant harvests. 

You will not be surprised to learn that, in the pecu- 
liar exigencies of the times, our intercourse with for- 
eign nations has been attended with profound solici- 
tude, chiefly turning upon our own domestic affairs. 

A disloyal portion of the American people have, dur- 
ing the whole year, been engaged in an attempt to 
divide and destroy the Union. A nation which endures 
factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect 
abroad; and one party, if not both, is sure, sooner or 
later, to invoke foreign intervention. Nations thus 
tempted to interfere are not always able to resist the- 



342 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous ambi- 
tion, although measures adopted under such influences 
seldom fail to be unfortunate and injurious to those 
adopting them. 

The disloyal citizens of the United States who have 
offered the ruin of our country in return for the aid and 
comfort which they have invoked abroad, have received 
less patronage and encouragement than they probably 
expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents 
have seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this 
case, discarding all moral, social, and treaty obliga- 
tions, would act solely and selfishly for the most 
speedy restoration of commerce, including, especially, 
the acquisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet 
not to have seen their way to their object more directly 
or clearly through the destruction than through the 
preservation of the Union. If we could dare to believe 
that foreign nations are actuated by no higher prin- 
ciple than this, I am quite sure a sound argument could 
be made to show them that they can reach their aim 
more readily and easily by aiding to crush this rebellion 
than by giving encouragement to it. . . . 

The inaugural address at the beginning of the ad- 
ministration, and the message to Congress at the late 
special session, were both mainly devoted to the do- 
mestic controversy out of which the insurrection and 
consequent war have sprung. Nothing now occurs to 
add or subtract, to or from, the principles or general 
purposes stated and expressed in those documents. 

The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peace- 
ably expired at the assault upon Fort Sumter; and a 
general review of what has occurred since may not be 
unprofitable. What was painfully uncertain then is 
much better defined and more distinct now ; and the 
progress of events is plainly in the right direction. 
The insurgents confidently claimed a strong support 
from north of Mason and Dixon's line ; and the friends 
of the Union were not free from apprehension on tlie^ 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 343 

point. This, however, was soon settled definitely, and 
on the right side. South of the line, noble little Dela- 
ware led ofif right from the first. Maryland was made 
to seem against the Union. Our soldiers were as- 
saulted, bridges were burned, and railroads torn up 
within her limits, and we were many days, at one 
time, without the ability to bring a single regiment 
over her soil to the capital. Now her bridges and rail- 
roads are repaired and open to the government; she 
already gives seven regiments to the cause of the Union 
and none to the enemy; and her people, at a regular 
election, have sustained the Union by a larger majority 
and a larger aggregate vote than they ever before gave 
to any candidate or any question. Kentucky, too, for 
some time in doubt, is now decidedly, and, I think, un- 
changeably, ranged on the side of the Union. Missouri 
is comparatively quiet, and, I believe, cannot again be 
overrun by the insurrectionists. These three States of 
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of which 
would promise a single soldier at first, have now an 
aggregate of not less than forty thousand in the field 
for the Union, while of their citizens certainly not 
more than a third of that number, and they of doubt- 
ful whereabouts and doubtful existence, are in arms 
against it. After a somewhat bloody struggle of 
months, winter closes on the Union people of western 
Virginia, leaving them masters of their own country. 

An insurgent force of about 1500, for months domi- 
nating the narrow peninsular region constituting the 
counties of Accomac and Northampton, and known as 
the eastern shore of Virginia, together with some con- 
tiguous parts of Maryland, have laid down their arms, 
and the people there have renewed their allegiance to 
and accepted the protection of the old flag. This leaves 
no armed insurrectionist north of the Potomac or east 
of the Chesapeake. 

Also we have obtained a footing at each of the iso- 
lated points, on the southern coast, of Hatteras, Port 



344 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Royal, Tybee Island, near Savannah, and Ship Island ; 
and we likewise have some general accounts of popular 
movements in behalf of the Union in North Carolina 
and Tennessee. 

These things demonstrate that the cause of the 
Union is advancing steadily and certainly southward. 

Since your last adjournment Lieutenant-General 
Scott has retired from the head of the army. During 
his long life the nation has not been unmindful of his 
merit; 3^et, on calling to mind how faithfully, ably, and 
brilliantly he has served the country from a time far 
back in our history when few of the now living bad been 
born, and thenceforward continually, I cannot but 
think we are still his debtors. I submit, therefore, for 
your consideration what further mark of recognition 
is due to him and to ourselves as a grateful people. 

With the retirement of General Scott came the exe- 
cutive duty of appointing in his stead a general-in- 
chief of the army. It is a fortunate circumstance that 
neither in council nor country w^as there, so far as I 
know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person 
to be selected. The retiring chief repeatedly expressed 
his judgment in favor of General McClellan for the 
position, and in this the nation seemed to give a un- 
animous concurrence. The designation of General Mc- 
Clellan is, therefore, in considerable degree the selec- 
tion of the country as well as of the executive, and 
hence there is better reason to hope there will be given 
him the confidence and cordial support thus by fair 
implication promised, and without which he cannot 
with so full efficiency serve the country. 

It has been said that one bad general is better than 
two good ones ; and the saying is true, if taken to mean 
no more than that an army is better directed by a single 
mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at 
variance and cross-purposes with each other. 

And the same is true in all joint operations wherein 
those engaged can have none but a common end in view, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



345 



and can differ only as to the choice of means. In a 
storm at sea no one on board can wish the ship to sink ; 
and 3'et not infrequently all go down together because 
too many will direct, and no single mind can be allowed 
to control. 

It continues to develop that the insurrection is 
largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first princi- 
ple of popular government — the rights of the people. 
Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most grave 
and maturely considered public documents as well as in 
the general tone of the insurgents. In those docu- 
ments we find the abridgment of the existing right of 
suffrage and the denial to the people of all right to 
participate in the selection of public officers except the 
legislative, boldly advocated, with labored arguments 
to prove that large control of the people in government 
is the source of all political evil. Monarchy itself is 
sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power 
of the people. 

In my present position I could scarcely be justified 
were I to omit raising a warning voice against this 
approach of returning despotism. 

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argu- 
ment should be made in favor of popular institutions; 
but there is one point, with its connections, not so 
hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief at- 
tention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal 
footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of 
government. It is assumed that labor is available only 
in connection with capital ; that nobody labors unless 
somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of 
it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next con- 
sidered whether it is be>5t that capital shall hire 
laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own 
consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their 
consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally 
concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers 
or what we call slaves. And, further, it is assumed 



346 SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that con- 
dition for life. 

Now, there is no such relation between capital and 
labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free 
man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired 
laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all in- 
ferences from them are groundless. 

Labor is i^rior to, and independent of, capital. 
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have 
existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the 
superior of capital, and deserves much the higher con- 
sideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy 
of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that 
there is, and probably always will be, a relation be- 
tween labor and capital producing mutual benefits. 
The error is in assuming that the whole labor of the 
community exists within that relation. A few men 
own capital, and that few^ avoid labor themselves, and 
with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for 
them. A large majority belong to neither class — 
neither work for others nor have others working for 
them. In most of the Southern States a majority of 
the whole people, of all colors, are neither slaves nor 
masters; while in the Northern a large majority are 
neither hirers nor hired. Men with their families — 
wives, sons, and daughters — work for themselves, on 
their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking 
the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors 
of capital on the one hand, nor of hired laborers or 
slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a consider- 
able number of persons mingle their own labor with 
capital — that is, they labor with their own hands and 
also buy or hire others to labor for them ; but this 
is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle 
stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class. 

Again, as has already been said, there is not, of 
necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer 
being fixed to that condition for life. Many inde- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 347 

pendent men everywhere in these States, a few years 
back in their lives, were hired laborers. The prudent, 
penniless beginner in the world labors for wages 
awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land 
for himself, then labors on his own account another 
while, and at length hires another new beginner to 
help him. This is the just and generous and pros- 
perous system which opens the way to all — gives hope 
to all, and consequent energy and progress and im- 
provement of condition to all. No men living are 
more worthy to be trusted than those w^ho toil up from 
poverty — none less inclined to take or touch aught 
which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware 
of surrendering a political power which they already 
possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used 
to close the door of advancement against such as they, 
and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, 
till all of liberty shall be lost. 

From the first taking of our national census to the 
last are seventy years; and we find our population at 
the end of the period eight times as great as it was at 
the beginning. The increase of those other things 
which men deem desirable has been even greater. We 
thus have, at one view, what the popular principle, 
applied to government, through the machinery of the 
States and the Union, has produced in a given time; 
and also what, if firmly maintained, it promises for the 
future. There are already among us those who, if the 
Union be preserved, will live to see it contain 250,000,- 
000. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to- 
day — it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on 
Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us pro- 
ceed in the great task which events have devolved upon 
us. 



348 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



MESSAGE TO CONGRESS RECOMMENDING COM- 
PENSATED EMANCIPATION, MARCH 6, 1862. 

Fclloic-citizcns of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives: I recommend the adoption of a joint resolu- 
tion by jour honorable bodies, which shall be substan- 
tially as follows: 

Resolved, That the United States ought to cooperate 
with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment 
of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be 
used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate 
for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by 
such change of s} stem. 

If the proposition contained in the resolution does 
not meet the approval of Congress and the country, 
there is the end; but if it does command such approval, 
I deem it of importance that the States and people 
immediately interested should be at once distinctly 
notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider 
whether to accept or reject it. The Federal Govern- 
ment would find its highest interest in such a measure, 
as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. 
The leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the 
hope that this government will ultimately be forced to 
acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaf- 
fected region, and that all the slave States north of 
such part will then say, " The Union for which we have 
struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with 
the Southern section." To deprive them of this hope 
substantially ends the rebellion; and the initiation of 
emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all 
the States initiating it. The point is not that all the 
States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 349 

initiate emancipation ; but that while tlie offer is' 
equally made to all, the more Northern shall, bj such 
initiation, make it certain to the more Southern that 
in no event will the former ever join the latter in their 
proposed confederacy. I say " initiation " because, in 
my judgment, gradual and not sudden emancipation is 
better for all. In the mere financial or pecuniary view, 
any member of Congress, with the census tables and 
treasury reports before him, can readily see for him- 
self how very soon the current expenditures of this war 
would purchase, at fair valuation, all the slaves in any 
named State. Such a proposition on the part of the 
General Government sets up no claim of a right by 
Federal authority to interfere with slavery within 
State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control 
of the subject in each case to the State and its people 
immediately interested. It is proposed as a matter of 
perfectly free choice with them. 

In the annual message, last December, I thought fit 
to say, '' The Union must be preserved, and hence all 
indispensable means must be employed." I said this 
not hastily, but deliberately. War has been made, and 
continues to be, an indispensable means to this end. 
A practical reacknowledgment of the national author- 
ity would render the war unnecessary, and it would at 
once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war 
must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee all 
the incidents which may attend and all the ruin which 
may follow it. Such as may seem indispensable, or 
may obviously promise great efficiency, toward ending 
the struggle, must and will come. 

The proposition now made, though an offer only, I 
hope it may be esteemed no offense to ask whether the 
pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of more 
value to the States and private persons concerned than 
are the institution and property in it, in the present 
aspect of affairs? 

While it is true that the adoption of the proposed 



350 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

resolution would be merely initiatory, and not within 
itself a practical measure, it is recommended in the 
hope that it would soon lead to important practical re- 
sults. In full view of my great responsibility to my 
God and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention 
of Congress and the people to the subject. 

[It should be noted that the South paid no heed to this proposal 
and took no advantage of it. On the Northern side, on the other 
hand, Congress, on April 16, 1862, purchased at the cost of close 
upon a million dollars the slaves in the District of Columbia and 
gave them their freedom]. 
— The Editor. 



PROCLAMATION RECOMMENDING THANKS- 
GIVING FOR VICTORIES, APRIL 10, 1862. 

It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal 
victories to the land and naval forces engaged in sup- 
pressing an internal rebellion, and at the same time to 
avert from our country the dangers of foreign inter- 
vention and invasion : 

It is therefore recommended to the people of the 
United States that, at their next weekly assemblages 
in their accustomed places of public worship which 
shall occur after notice of this proclamation shall have 
been received, they especially acknowledge and render 
thanks to our Heavenly Father for these inestimable 
blessings; that they then and there implore spiritual 
consolation in behalf of all who have been brought in- 
to affliction by the casualties and calamities of sedi- 
tion and civil war; and that they reverently invoke 
the divine guidance for our national counsels, to the 
end that they may speedily result in the restoration of 
peace, harmony, and unity throughout our borders, and 
hasten the establishment of fraternal relations among 
?i_ll the countries of the earth. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 55;^ 



PRELIMINARY EMANCIPATION, PROCLAMA- 
TION, SEPTEMBER 22, 1S62. 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States 
of America, and commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that here- 
after, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for 
the object of practically restoring the constitutional 
relation between the United States and each of the 
States, and the people thereof, in which States that re- 
lation is or may be suspended or disturbed. 

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of 
Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a prac- 
tical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free ac- 
ceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the 
people whereof may not then be in rebellion against 
the United States, and which States may then have 
voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily 
adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery 
within their respective limits; and that the effort to 
colonize persons of African descent with their consent 
upon this continent or elsewhere, with the previously 
obtained consent of the government existing there, will 
be continued. 

That on the first day of January, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all 
persons held as slaves within any State or designated 
part of a State the people whereof shall then be in re- 
bellion against the United States, shall be then, thence- 
forward, and forever free; and the Executive Govern- 
ment of the United States, including the military and 
naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain 
the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or 
acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any 
efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 



352. SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

That the Executive will, on the first day of January 
aforesaid, by proclamation designate the States and 
parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, re- 
spectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United 
States; and the fact that any State, or the people 
thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented 
in the Congress of the United States by members 
chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the 
qualified voters of such State shall have participated, 
shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testi- 
mony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, 
and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion 
against the United States. 

That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress 
entitled " An act to make an additional article of war," 
approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words 
and figure following: 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
the United States of America in Congress assembled, That here- 
after the following shall be promulgated as an additional article 
of war, for the government of the army of the United States, and 
shall be obeyed and observed as such : 

Article — . All officers or persons in the military or naval 
service of the United States are prohibited from employing any 
of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose 
of returning fugitives from service or labor who may have es- 
caped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed 
to be due ; and any officer who shall be found guilty bj' a court 
martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the 
service. 

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted. That this act shall take 
eflFect from and after its passage. 

Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act en- 
titled " An act to suppress insurrection, to punish 
treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate property 
of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 
18G2, and which sections are in the words and figures 
following: 

Sec. 9. And be it further enacted. That all slaves of persons 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 353 

who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Govern- 
ment of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or 
comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge 
within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such 
persons or deserted by them, and coming under the control of the 
Government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons 
found on [or] being wnthin any phice occupied by rebel forces 
and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall 
be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their 
servitude, and not again held as slaves. 

Sec. 10. And be it further enacted. That no slave escaping 
into any State, Territory, or the District of Columibia, from any 
other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or 
hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some ofTense against 
the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make 
oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugi- 
tive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne 
arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in 
any way given aid and comfort thereto ; and no person engaged 
in the military or naval service of the United States shall, 
under any pretense whatever, assume to decide on the validity 
of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other 
person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain 
of being dismissed from the service. 

And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons 
engaged in the military and naval service of the United 
States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their re- 
spective spheres of service, the act and sections above 
recited. 

And the Executive will in due time recommend that 
all citizens of the United States who shall have re- 
mained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion shall 
(upon the restoration of the constitutional relation 
between the United States and their respective Stat(>s 
and people, if that relation shall have been suspended 
or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of 
the United States, including the loss of slaves. 
23 



354: SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



EXTRACTS FROM ANNUAL MESSAGE TO 
CONGRESS, DEC. 1, 1862. 

[In this Message, the President touches upon the progress of 
events in the Civil War and on the relations of the Republic with 
foreign governments at the critical era. The condition of the 
finances is then dealt with and the return to specie payments is 
recommended, as speedily as conditions will permit. He then 
remarks upon the inadequacy of disunion as a remedy for 
the differences between North and South, commenting on the in- 
ability to find or locate a line of division separating the two 
warring sections of the country, were it practicable or patriotic 
to consider any such proposal as the line by which to separate 
slave and free. The President closes with a reference once more 
to his idea of compensated emancipation as a means of restoring 
peace and saving the Union in its integrity from the continuance 
of the fiery trial through which the nation has been called upon 
to pass]. 

Fello IV- citizens of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives: Since your last annual assembling another 
year of health and bountiful harvests has passed; and 
while it has not pleased the Almighty to bless us with 
a return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the 
best light he gives us, trusting that in his own good 
time and wise way all will yet be well. 

The correspondence touching foreign affairs which 
has taken place during the last year is herewith sub- 
mitted, in virtual compliance with a request to that 
effect, made by the House of Representatives near the 
close of the last session of Congress. 

If the condition of our relations with other nations 
is less gratifying than it has usually been at former 
periods, it is certainly more satisfactory than a nation 
so unhappily distracted as we are might reasonably 
have apprehended. In the month of June last there 
,were some grounds to expect that the maritime powers 



SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 355 

which, at the beginning of our domestic difficulties, so 
unwisely and unnecessarily, as we think, recognized 
the insurgents as a belligerent, would soon recede from 
that position, which has proved only less injurious to 
themselves than to our own country. But the tem- 
porary reverses which afterward befell the national 
arms, and which were exaggerated by our own dis- 
loyal citizens abroad, have hitherto delayed that act 
of simple justice. 

The civil war, which has so radically changed, for 
the moment, the occupations and habits of the Ameri- 
can people, has necessarily disturbed the social con- 
dition, and affected very deeply the prosperity of the 
nations with which we have carried on a commerce 
that has been steadily increasing throughout a period 
of half a century. It has, at the same time, excited 
political ambitions and apprehensions which have pro- 
duced a profound agitation throughout the civilized 
world. In this unusual agitation we have forborne 
from taking part in any controversy between foreign 
states, and between parties or factions in such states. 
We have attempted no propagandism, and acknowl- 
edge no revolution. But we have left to every nation 
the exclusive conduct and management of its own 
affairs. Our struggle has been, of course, contemplated 
by foreign nations with reference less to its own merits 
than to its supposed and often exaggerated effects and 
consequences resulting to those nations themselves. 
Nevertheless, complaint on the part of this govern- 
ment, even if it were just, would certainly be unwise. 

The treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of 
the slave-trade has been put into operation with a good 
prospect of complete success. It is an occasion of 
special pleasure to acknowledge that the execution of 
it on the part of her Majesty's government has been 
marked with a jealous respect for the authority of the 
United States, and the rights of their moral and loyal 
citizens. . . . 



356 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

A blockade of three thousand miles of sea-coast could 
not be established and vigorously enforced, in a season 
of great commercial activity like the present, without 
committing occasional mistakes, and inflicting unin- 
tentional injuries upon foreign nations and their sub- 
jects. 

A civil war occurring in a country where foreigners 
reside and carry on trade under treaty stipulations, is 
necessarily fruitful of complaints of the violation of 
neutral rights. All such collisions tend to excite mis- 
apprehensions, and possibly to produce mutual recla- 
mations between nations which have a common interest 
in preserving peace and friendship. In clear cases of 
these kinds I have, so far as possible, heard and re- 
dressed complaints which have been presented by 
friendly powers. There is still, however, a large and 
an augmenting number of doubtful cases upon which 
the government is unable to agree with the governments 
whose protection is demanded by the claimants. There 
are, moreover, many cases in which the United States 
or their citizens suffer wrongs from the naval or mili- 
tary authorities of foreign nations, which the govern- 
ments of those states are not at once prepared to re- 
dress. I have proposed to some of the foreign states 
thus interested mutual conventions to examine and 
adjust such complaints. This proposition has been 
made especially to Great Britain, to France, to Spain, 
and to Prussia. In each case it has been kindly re- 
ceived, but has not yet been formally adopted. . . . 

I have favored the project for connecting the United 
States with Europe by an Atlantic telegraph, and a 
similar project to extend the telegraph from San Fran- 
cisco, to connect by a Pacific telegraph with the line 
which is being extended across the Russian empire. 

The Territories of the United States, with unimpor- 
tant exceptions, have remained undisturbed by the civil 
war, and they are exhibiting such evidence of pros- 
perity as justifies an expectation that some of them will 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLN. 357 

soon be in a condition to be organized as States and be 
constitutionally admitted into the Federal Union. 

The immense mineral resources of some of those Ter- 
ritories ought to be developed as rapidly as possible. 
Every step in that direction vrould have a tendency to 
imxH'ove the revenues of the government, and diminish 
the burdens of tlie peo})le. It is worthy of your serious 
consideration whether some extraordinary measures to 
promote that end cannot be adopted. The means which 
suggests itself as most likely to bo effective is a scien- 
tific exploration of the mineral regions in those Terri- 
tories, with a view to the publication of its results at 
liome and in foreign countries— results which cannot 
fail to be auspicious. 

The condition of the finances will claim your most 
diligent consideration. The vast expenditures incident 
to the military and naval operations required for the 
suppression of the rebellion have hitherto been met 
with a promptitude and certainty unusual in similar 
circumstances, and the public credit has been fully 
maintained. The continuance of the war, however, 
and the increased disbursements made necessary by the 
augmented forces now in the field, demand your best 
reflections as to the best modes of providing the neces- 
sary revenue without injury to business and with the 
least possible burdens upon labor. 

The suspension of specie payments by the banks, soon 
after the commencement of your last session, made 
large issues of United States notes unavoidable. In no 
other way could the payment of the troops, and the 
satisfaction of other just demands, be so economically 
or so well provided for. The judicious legislation of 
('ongress, securing the receivability of these notes for 
loans and internal duties, and making them a legal 
tender for other debts, has made them a universal 
currency, and has satisfied, partially at least, and for 
the time, the long-felt want of a uniform circulating 



358 SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

medium, saving thereby to the people immense sums 
in discounts and exchanges. 

A return to specie payments, however, at the earliest 
period compatible with due regard to all interests con- 
cerned, should ever be kept in view. Fluctuations in 
the value of currency are always injurious, and to re- 
duce these fluctuations to the lowest possible point 
will always be a leading purpose in wise legislation. 
Convertibility — prompt and certain convertibility — 
into coin is generally acknowledged to be the best and 
surest safeguard against them; and it is extremely 
doubtful whether a circulation of United States notes, 
payable in coin, and sufficiently large for the wants of 
the people, can be permanently, usefully, and safely 
maintained. . . . 

A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its 
people, and its laws. The territory is the only part 
which is of certain durability. " One generation 
passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the 
earth abideth forever." It is of the first importance to 
duly consider and estimate this ever-enduring part. 
That portion of the earth's surface which is owned and 
inhabited by the people of the United States is well 
adapted to be the home of one national family, and it 
is not well adapted for two or more. Its vast extent 
and its variety of climate and productions are of ad- 
vantage in this age for one people, whatever they might 
have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and in- 
telligence have brought these to be an advantageous 
combination for one united people. 

In the inaugural address I briefly pointed out the 
total inadequacy of disunion as a remedy for the dif- 
ferences between the people of the two sections. I 
did so in language which I cannot improve and which, 
therefore, I beg to repeat: 

One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought 
to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not 
to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugi- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



359 



tive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppres- 
sion of the foreign slave-trade are each as well enforced, per- 
haps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral 
sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great 
body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both 
cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be per- 
fectly cured; and it would be worse in both eases after the 
separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, 
now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without 
restriction in one section; while fugitive slaves^ now only 
partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the 
other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove 
our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassible 
wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go 
out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other ; but the 
different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but 
remain face to face ; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, 
must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that 
intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separ- 
ation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends 
can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced be- 
tween aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to 
war, you cannot tight always ; and when, after much loss on both 
sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical 
old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. 

There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for 
a national boundary upon which to divide. Trace 
through, from east to west, upon the line between the 
free and slave country, and we shall find a little more 
than one third of its length are rivers, easy to be 
crossed, and populated, or soon to be populated, thickly 
upon both sides; while nearly all its remaining length 
are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may 
walk back and forth without any consciousness of 
their presence. No part of this line can be made any 
more difficult to pass by writing it down on paper or 
parchment as a national boundary. The fact of separa- 
tion, if it comes, gives up on the part of the seceding 
section the fugitive-slave clause along with all other 
constitutional obligations upon the section seceded 
from, while I should expect no treaty stipulation would 
be ever made to take its place. 



360 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

But there is another diflSculty. The great interior 
region, bounded east by the Alleghanies, north by the 
British dominions, west by the Rocljy Mountains, and 
south by the line along which the culture of corn and 
cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part 
of Tennessee, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, 
Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, 
and the Territories of Dakota, Nebraska, and part of 
Colorado, already has above ten millions of people, 
and will have fifty millions within fifty years if not 
prevented by any political folly or mistake. It contains 
more than one third of the country owned by the 
United States — certainly more than one million of 
square miles. Once half as populous as Massachusetts 
already is, it would have more than seventy-five millions 
of people. A glance at the map shows that, terri- 
torially speaking, it is the great body of the republic. 
The other parts are but marginal borders to it, the 
magnificent region sloping west from the Rocky Moun- 
tains to the Pacific being the deepest and also the rich- 
est in undeveloped resources. In the production of 
provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceed 
from them, this great interior region is naturally one 
of the most important in the world. Ascertain from 
the statistics the small proportion of the region which 
has, as yet, been brought into cultivation, and also the 
large and rapidly increasing amount of its products, 
and we shall be overwhelmed with the magnitude of 
the prospect presented ; and yet this region has no sea- 
coast, touches no ocean anywhere. As part of one 
nation, its people now find, and may forever find, their 
way to Europe by New York, to South America and 
Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco. 
But separate our common country into two nations, as 
designed by the present rebellion, and every man of 
this great interior region is thereby cut off from some 
one or more of these outlets — not, perhaps, by a phy- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 35! 

sical barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade 
regulations. 

And this is true wherever a dividing or boundary 
line may be fixed. Place it between the now free and 
slave country, or place it south of Kentucky or north of 
Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south of it 
can trade to any port or place north of it, and none 
north of it can trade to any port or place south of it, 
except upon terms dictated by a government foreign 
to them. These outlets, east, west, and south, are in- 
dispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting, 
and to inhabit, this vast interior region. Which of the 
three may be the best, is no proper question. All are 
better than either; and all of right belong to that peo- 
ple and to their successors forever. True to themselves, 
they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, 
but will vow rather that there shall be no such line. 
Nor are the marginal regions less interested in these 
communications to and through them to the great out- 
side world. They, too, and each of tliem, must have ac- 
cess to this Egypt of the West without paying toll at 
the crossing of any national boundary. 

Our national strife springs not from our permanent 
part, not from the land we inhabit, not from our 
national homestead. There is no possible severing of 
this but would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among 
us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands 
union and abhors separation. In fact, it would ere 
long force reunion, however much of blood and treasure 
the separation might have cost. 

Our strife pertains to ourselves — to the passing gen- 
erations of men ; and it can without convulsion be 
hushed forever with the passing of one generation. . . . 

I do not forget the gravity which should characterize 
a paper addressed to the Congress of the nation by the 
Chief Magistrate of the nation. Nor do I forget that 
some of you are my seniors, nor that many of 30U have 
more experience than I in the conduct of public affairs. 
Yet I trust that in view of the great responsibility 



362 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

resting upon me,, you will perceive no want of respect 
to yourselves in any undue earnestness I may seem to 
display. 

Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if 
adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its 
expenditure of money and of blood? Is it doubted 
that it would restore the national authority and na- 
tional prosperity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is 
it doubted that we here — Congress and Executive — 
can secure its adoption? Will not the good people 
respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can 
we, can they, by any other means so certainly or so 
speedily assure these vital objects? We can succeed 
only by concert. It is not " Can any of us imagine 
better?" but, '* Can we all do better?'" Object what- 
soever is possible, still the question occurs, " Can we 
do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past are inade- 
quate to the stormj" present. The occasion is plied 
high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occas- 
ion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and 
act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we 
shall save our country. 

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of 
this Congress and this administration will be remem- 
bered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance 
or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The 
fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, 
in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say 
we are for the Union. The world will not forget that 
we say this. We know how to save the Union. The 
world knows we do know how to save it. We — even 
we here — hold the power and bear the responsibility. 
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to 
the free — honorable alike in what we give and what 
we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose 
the last, best hope of earth. Other means may suc- 
ceed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peace- 
ful, generous, just — a way which, if followed, the world 
will forever applaud, and God must forever bless. 







"S 



ft 

o 
o 






SPEECHES OF ABRAHA^I LINCOLN. 3^3 



FINAL EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, 
JANUARY 1, 1SG3. 

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in 
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President 
of the United States, containing, among other things, 
the following, to wit : 

" That on the first day of January, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all 
persons held as slaves within any State, or designated 
part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in 
rebellion against the United States, shall be then, 
thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive 
Government of the United States, including the mili- 
tary and naval authority thereof, wMll recognize and 
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no 
act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in 
any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 

" That the Executive will, on the first day of Jan- 
uary aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States 
and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof 
respectively shall then be in rebellion against the 
United States; and the fact that any State, or the peo- 
ple thereof, shall on that day be in good faith repre- 
sented in the Congress of the United States by members 
chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the 
qualified voters of such State shall have participated, 
shall in the absence of strong countervailing testi- 
mony be deemed conclusive evidence that such State 
and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against 
the United States." 



364 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of 
the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested 
as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the 
United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against 
the authority and government of the United States, 
and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppres- 
sing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in 
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to 
do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of 100 days 
from the day first above mentioned, order and desig- 
nate as the States and parts of States wherein the peo- 
ple thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion 
against the United States, the following, to wit: 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of 
St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. 
Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre 
Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, 
including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Ala- 
bama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Caro- 
lina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties 
designated as West Virginia, and also the countries of 
Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, 
York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities 
of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts 
are for the present left precisely as if this proclama- 
tion were not issued. 

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose 
aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held 
as slaves within said designated States and parts of 
States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that 
the Executive Government of the United States, in- 
cluding the military and naval authorities thereof, 
will recognize and maintain the freedom of said 
persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to 
be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary 
self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 355 

cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reason- 
able wages. 

And I further declare and make known that such 
persons of suitable condition will be received into the 
armed service of the United States to garrison forts, 
positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels 
of all sorts in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act 
of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon mili- 
tary necessity. I invoke the considerate judgment of 
mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. 



366 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION, JULY 15, 1863. 

[The reasons for this earnest summons of the President to give 
thanks, were, happily, at this period both abundant and gratify- 
ing to the North. Emancipation had been a stroke of the 
first magnitude, as Lincoln, with his usual foresight, had divined 
it would be, and it was astutely timed, so that, though termed 
" a war measure/' it was not the resort of the President and 
Cabinet at an era of disaster, but after Antietam had been fought 
and won by Northern prowess, followed by the bloody but de- 
cisive battle of Gettysburg, which forced Lee to return to the 
Virginia side of the Potomac. Further triumphs were the 
capture and occupation by Grant of Vicksburg; the surrender 
of Port Hudson to Banks ; and the opening of the Mississippi to 
its mouth, with the occupation of New Orleans by Union ti'oops. 
These victories brought the internecine strife nearer to a close, 
and inspired the North with new hopes of restoring the riven 
Union. At this period the result was no longer doubtful, and 
hence the dutifulness and especial fitness of the call for thanks- 
giving]. 

It has pleased Almighty God to hearken to the sup- 
plications and prayers of an afflicted people, and to 
vouchsafe to the army and navy of the United States 
victories on land and on the sea so signal and so 
effective as to furnish reasonable grounds for aug- 
mented confidence that the union of these States will 
be maintained, their Constitution preserved, and their 
peace and prosperity permanently restored. But these 
victories have been accorded not without sacrifices of 
life, limb, health, and liberty, incurred by brave, loyal, 
and patriotic citizens. Domestic affliction in every 
part of the country follows in the train of these fearful 
bereavements. It is meet and right to recognize and 
confess the presence of the Almighty Father, and the 
power of his hand equally in these triumphs and in 
these sorrows. 

Now, therefore, be it known that I do set apart 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^67 

Thursday, the 6th day of August next, to be observed 
as a day for national thanksgiving, praise, and prayer, 
and I invite the people of the United States to assemble 
on that occasion in their customary places of worship, 
and, in the forms approved by their own consciences, 
render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the 
wonderful things he has done in the nation's behalf, 
and invoke the influence of his Holy Spirit to subdue 
the anger which has produced and so long sustained a 
needless and cruel rebellion, to change the hearts of the 
insurgents, to guide the counsels of the government 
with wisdom adequate to so great a national emerg- 
ency, and to visit with tender care and consolation 
throughout the length and breadth of our land all those 
who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, 
battles, and sieges have been brought to suffer in mind, 
body, or estate, and finally to lead the whole nation 
through the paths of repentance and submission to the 
Divine Will back to the perfect enjoyment of union 
and fraternal peace. 



368 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, NOV. 19, 1863. 

[This Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National 
Cemetery, brief though it is, is immortal, and has taken its place 
among the most treasured of the world's orations. Short and 
unstudied as it is, there is nothing to surpass it in simple, un- 
adorned eloquence, in the literatures of either the Old or the New 
World. This is the judgment of the best and most competent 
of critics]. 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so 
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great 
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a 
portion of that field as a final resting-place for those 
who here gave their lives that that nation might live. 
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do 
this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we can- 
not consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have 
consecrated it far above our poor power to add or de- 
tract. The world will little note nor long remember 
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did 
here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to 
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us 
— that from these honored dead we take increased devo- 
tion to that cause for which they gave the last full 
measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that 
these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ; and that 
government of the people, by the people, for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 359 



PROCLAMATION OF AMNESTY AND RECON- 

STRUCTION, DEC. 8, 1863. 

[With the most assuring outlook and justified hope of the re- 
turn of peace, the President turns his attention to the subject of 
amnesty and pardon for those who had taken active part in the 
rebellion, with the view of restoring them to the status of citizens. 
In the following proclamation, the persons who may claim the 
benefit of the pardoning grace, and the conditio- on which such 
pardon Avas to be granted, may be learned, as well as the offer 
made to the States that have been in rebellion and the conditions 
on which such may be readmitted to the Union, on the lines of 
the policy so far determined upon of restoration and recon- 
struction]. 

Whereas, in and by the Constitution of the United 
States, it is provided that the President "■ shall have 
power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses 
against the United States, except in cases of impeach- 
ment "; and 

Whereas a rebellion now exists whereby the loyal 
State governments of several States have for a long 
time been subverted, and many persons have committed, 
and are now guilty of, treason against the United 
States; and 

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion and trea- 
son, laws have been enacted by Congress, declaring 
forfeitures and confiscation of property and liberation 
of slaves, all upon terms and conditions therein stated, 
and also declaring that the President was thereby au- 
thorized at any time thereafter, by proclamation, to 
extend to persons who may have participated in the 
existing rebellion, in any State or part thereof, pardon 
and amnesty, with such exceptions and at such times 
and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for 
the public welfare; and 

Whereas the congressional declaration for limited 
24 



370 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and conditional pardon accords with well-established 
judicial exposition of the pardoning power; and 

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion, the Presi- 
dent of the United States has issued several proclama- 
tions, with provisions in regard to the liberation of 
slaves ; and 

Whereas it is now desired by some persons hereto- 
fore engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance 
to the United States, and to reinaugurate loyal State 
governments within and for their respective States; 
therefore 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, 
do proclaim, declare, and make known to all persons 
who have, directly or by implication, participated in 
the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, 
that a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each 
of them, with restoration of all rights of property, ex- 
cept as to slaves, and in property cases where rights 
of third parties shall have intervened, and upon the 
condition that every such person shall take and sub- 
scribe an oath, and thenceforward keep and maintain 
said oath inviolate ; and which oath shall be registered 
for permanent preservation, and shall be of the tenor 
and effect, to wit: 

I, , do solemnly swear, in presence of almighty God, 

that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the 
Constitution of the United States, and the union of the States 
thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faith- 
fully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing re- 
bellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not re- 
pealed, modified, or held void by Congress, or by decision of the 
Supreme Court; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and 
faithfully support all proclamations of the President made durirg 
the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so 
far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme 
Court. So help me God. 

The persons exempted from the benefits of the fore- 
going provisions are all who are, or shall have been, 
civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 37 ^ 

Confederate Government; all who have left judicial 
stations under the United States to aid the rebellion; 
all who are or shall have been military' or naval officers 
of said so-called Confederate Government above the 
rank of colonel in the army or of lieutenant in the navy ; 
all who left seats in the United States Congress to 
aid the rebellion ; all who resigned commissions in the 
army or navy of the United States and afterward aided 
the rebellion ; and all who have engaged in any way 
in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge 
of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war, 
and which persons may have been found in the United 
States service as soldiers, seamen, or in any other 
capacity. 

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known 
that whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, 
Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number 
of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the 
votes cast in such State at the presidential election of 
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
sixty, each having taken the oath aforesaid and not 
having since violated it, and being a qualified voter 
by the election law of the State existing immediately 
before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all 
others, shall reestablish a State government which shall 
be republican, and in no wise contravening said oath, 
such shall be recognized as the true government of the 
State, and the State shall receive thereunder the bene- 
fits of the constitutional provision which declares that 
" the United States shall guaranty to every State in 
this Union a republican form of government, and shall 
protect each of them against invasion ; and, on applica- 
tion of the legislature, or the executive (when the legis- 
lature cannot be convened), against domestic violence." 

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, 
that any provision which may be adopted by such State 
government in relation to the freed people of such 



372 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

State, which shall recognize and declare their per- 
manent freedom, provide for their education, and 
which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrange- 
ment with their present condition as a laboring, land- 
less, and homeless class, will not be objected to by 
the national executive. 

And it is suggested as not improper that, in con- 
structing a l03^al State government in any State, the 
name of the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the 
constitution, and the general code of laws, as before 
the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modi- 
fications made necessary by the conditions hereinbe- 
fore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening 
said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient 
by those framing the new State government. 

To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say 
that this proclamation, so far as it relates to State 
governments, has no reference to States, wherein loyal 
State governments have all the while been maintained. 

And, for the same reason, it may be proper to further 
say, that whether members sent to Congress from any 
State shall be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests 
exclusively with the respective houses, and not to any 
extent with the executive. And still further, that this 
proclamation is intended to present the people of the 
States wherein the national authority has been sus- 
pended, and loyal State governments have been sub- 
verted, a mode in and by which the national authority 
and loyal State governments may be reestablished with- 
in said States, or in any of them ; and while the mode 
presented is the best the executive can suggest, with his 
present impressions, it must not be understood that no 
other possible mode would be acceptable. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLX. ^73 



4NNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGKESS, DEC. 8, 18G3. 

[Only the important parts of this Message are here given, 
whicli review^ to some extent, the progress mad. within the past 
year toward peace, with allusion to the practical features of the 
Governmental policy of reconstruction and the offer made to any 
State or States that desired to return to their allegiance to the 
Federal power and submit to the national authority. The 
Message, as usual, bears on its face the evidences of having bee n 
carefully and thoughtfully prepared, and that by a grateful heart, 
still fervently hoping for a speedy and happy ending to the 
calamitous and protracted period of strife]. 

Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Represen- 
tatives: Another jenv of health, and of sufficiently 
abundant harvest, has passed. For these, and especially 
for the improved condition of our national affairs, our 
renewed and profoundest fjratitude to God is due. 

We remain in peace and friendship with foreign 
powers. 

The efforts of disloyal citizens of the United States 
to involve us in foreign wars, to aid an inexcusable in- 
surrection, have been unavailing. Her Britannic 
Majesty's government, as was justly expected, have 
exercised their authority to prevent the departure of 
new hostile expeditions from British ports. The Em- 
peror of France has, by a like proceeding, promptly 
vindicated the neutrality which he proclaimed at the 
beginning of the contest. Questions of groat intricacy 
and importance have arisen out of the blockade, and 
other belligerent operations, between the government 
and several of the maritime powers, but they have been 
discussed, and, as far as was possible, accommodated, in 
a spirit of frankness, justice, and mutual good-will. 
It is especially gratifying that our prize courts by the 
impartiality of their adjudications, have commanded 
the respect and confidence of maritime powers. 



374: SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

The supplemental treaty between the United States 
and Great Britain for the suppression of the African 
slave-trade, made on the 17th day of February last, has 
been duly ratified and carried into execution. It is 
believed that, so far as American ports and American 
citizens are concerned, that inhuman and odious traffic 
has been brought to an end. 

I shall submit, for the consideration of the Senate, 
a convention for the adjustment of possessory claims 
in Washington Territory, arising out of the treaty of 
the 15th of June, 1846, between the United States and 
Great Britain, and which have been the source of some 
disquiet among the citizens of that now rapidly im- 
proving part of the country. 

A novel and important question, involving the extent 
of the maritime jurisdiction of Spain in the waters 
which surround the island of Cuba, has been debated 
without reaching an agreement, and it is proposed, in 
an amicable spirit, to refer it to the arbitrament of a 
friendly power. A convention for that purpose will be 
submitted to the Senate. 

I have thought it proper, subject to the approval of 
the Senate, to concur with the interested commercial 
powers in an arrangement for the liquidation of the 
Scheldt dues upon the principles which have been here- 
tofore adopted in regard to the imposts upon naviga- 
tion in the waters of Denmark. 

The long-pending controversy between this govern- 
ment and that of Chile, touching the seizure at Sitana, 
in Peru, by Chilian officers, of a large amount in 
treasure belonging to citizens of the United States, has 
been brought to a close by the award of his Majesty 
the King of the Belgians, to whose arbitration the ques- 
tion was referred by the parties. The subject was 
thoroughly and patiently examined by that justly re- 
spected magistrate, and although the sum awarded to 
the claimants may not have been as large as they ex- 
pected, there is no reason to distrust the wisdom of his 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 375 

Majesty's decision. That decision was promptly com- 
plied with by Chile, when intelligence in regard to it 
reached that country. 

The joint commission, under the act of the last ses- 
sion, for carrying into effect the convention with Peru, 
on the subject of claims, has been organized at Lima, 
and is engaged in the business intrusted to it. 

Difficulties concerning inter-oceanic transit through 
Nicaragua are in course of amicable adjustment. 

In conformity with principles set forth in my last 
annual message, I have received a representative from 
the United States of Coloumbia, and have accredited a 
minister to that republic. 

Incidents occurring in the progress of our civil war 
have forced upon my attention the uncertain state of 
international questions touching the rights of for- 
eigners in this country and of United States citizens 
abroad. In regard to some governments, these rights 
are at least partially defined by treaties. In no in- 
stance, however, is it expressly stipulated that, in 
the event of civil war, a foreigner residing in this 
country, within the lines of the insurgents, is to be 
exempted from the rule which classes him as a belli- 
gerent, in whose behalf the government of his country 
cannot expect any privileges or immunities distinct 
from that character. I regret to say, however, that 
such claims have been put forward, and, in some in- 
stances, in behalf of foreigners who have lived in the 
United States the greater part of their lives. 

There is reason to believe that many persons born 
in foreign countries, who have declared their inten- 
tion to become citizens, or who have been fully natura- 
lized, have evaded the military duty required of them 
by denying the fact, and thereby throwing upon the 
government the burden of i)roof. It has been found 
difficult or impracticable to obtain tliis proof, from the 
want of guides to the proper sources of information. 
These might be supplied by requiring clerks of courts, 



376 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

where declarations of intention may be made, or 
naturalizations effected, to send, periodically, lists of 
the names of the persons naturalized, or declaring their 
intention to become citizens, to the Secretary of the In- 
terior, in whose department those names might be 
arranged and printed for general information. 

There is also reason to believe that foreigners fre- 
quently become citizens of the United States for the 
sole purpose of evading duties imposed by the laws of 
their native countries, to which, on becoming natura- 
lized here, they at once repair, and, though never re- 
turning to the United States, they still claim the inter- 
position of this government as citizens. Many alter- 
cations and great prejudices have heretofore arisen 
out of this abuse. It is, therefore, submitted to your 
serious consideration. It might be advisable to fix a 
limit, beyond which no citizen of the United States 
residing abroad may claim the interposition of his 
government. 

The right of suffrage has often been assumed and 
exercised by aliens, under pretenses of naturalization, 
which they have disavowed when drafted into the 
military service. I submit the expediency of such an 
amendment of the law as will make the fact of voting 
an estoppel against any plea of exemption from mili- 
tary service, or other civil obligation, on the ground 
of alienage. 

In common with other Western powers, our relations 
with Japan have been brought into serious jeopardy, 
through the perverse opposition of the hereditary aris- 
tocracy of the empire to the enlightened and liberal 
policy of the Tycoon, designed to bring the country 
into the society of nations. It is hoped, although not 
with entire confidence, that these difficulties may be 
peacefully overcome. I ask your attention to the claim 
of the minister residing there for the damages he sus- 
tained in the destruction by fire of the residence of the 
legation at Yeddo. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 377 

Satisfactory arrangements have been made with the 
Emperor of Russia, which, it is believed, will result in 
efifecting a continuous line of telegraph through that 
empire from our Pacific coast. 

I recommend to your favorable consideration the 
subject of an international telegraph across the At- 
lantic Ocean ; and also of a telegraph between this 
capital and the national forts along the Atlantic sea- 
board and the Gulf of Mexico. Such communications, 
established with any reasonable outlay, would be eco- 
nomical as well as effective aids to the diplomatic, 
military, and naval service. 

The consular system of the United States, under the 
enactments of the last Congress, begins to be self-sus- 
taining; and there is reason to hope that it may become 
entirely so, with the increase of trade which will ensue 
whenever peace is restored. Our ministers abroad 
have been faithful in defending American rights. In 
protecting commercial interests, our consuls have 
necessarily had to encounter increased labors and 
responsibilities, growing out of the war. These they 
have, for the most part, met and discharged with zeal 
and efficiency. This acknowledgment justly includes 
those consuls who, residing in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, 
Japan, China, and other Oriental countries, are 
charged with complex functions and extraordinary 
powers. 

The condition of the several organized Territories is 
generally satisfactory, although Indian disturbances in 
New Mexico have not been entirely suppressed. The 
mineral resources of Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, New 
Mexico, and Arizona are proving far richer than has 
been heretofore understood. I lay before you a com- 
munication on this subject from the governor of New 
Mexico. I again submit to your consideration the ex- 
pediency of establishing a system for the encourage- 
ment of immigration. Although this source of national 
wealth and strength is again flowing with greater free- 



37S SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

dom than for several years before the insurrection oc- 
curred, there is still a great deficiency of laborers in 
every field of industry, especially in agriculture, and 
in our mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious 
metals. While the demand for labor is thus increased 
here, tens of thousands of persons, destitute of re- 
munerative occupation, are thronging our foreign con- 
sulates, and offering to emigrate to the United States 
if essential, but very cheap, assistance can be afforded 
them. It is easy to see that, under the sharp discipline 
of civil war, the nation is beginning a new life. This 
noble effort demands the aid, and ought to receive the 
attention and support of the government. 

Injuries, unforeseen by the government and unin- 
tended, may, in some cases, have been inflicted on the 
subjects or citizens of foreign countries, both at sea 
and on land, by persons in the service of the United 
States. As this government expects redress from other 
powers when similar injuries are inflicted by persons 
in their service upon citizens of the United States, we 
must be prepared to do justice to foreigners. If the 
existing judicial tribunals are inadequate to this pur- 
pose, a special court may be authorized, with power 
to hear and decide such claims of the character re- 
ferred to as may have arisen under treaties and the 
public law. Conventions for adjusting the claims by 
joint commission have been proposed to some govern- 
ments, but no definitive answer to the proposition has 
yet been received from any. 

In the course of the session I shall probably have oc- 
casion to request you to provide indemnification to 
claimants where decrees of restitution have been ren- 
dered, and damages awarded by admiralty courts; and 
in other cases, where this government may be acknowl- 
edged to be liable in principle, and where the amount 
of that liability has been ascertained by an informal 
arbitration. 

The proper officers of the treasury have deemed them- 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 379 

selves required bj the law of the United States upon the 
subject to demand a tax upon the incomes of foreign 
consuls in this country. While such a demand may 
not, in strictness, be in derogation of public law, 
or perhaps of any existing treaty between the United 
States and a foreign country, the expediency of so far 
modifying the act as to exempt from tax the income of 
such consuls as are not citizens of the United States, 
derived from the emoluments of their ofiSce, or from 
property not situated in the United States, is sub- 
mitted to your serious consideration. I make this 
suggestion upon the ground that a comity which ought 
to be reciprocated exempts our consuls, in all other 
countries, from taxation to the extent thus indicated. 
The United States, I think, ought not to be exception- 
ally illiberal to international trade and commerce. 

The operations of the treasury during the last year 
have been successfully conducted. The enactment by 
Congress of a national banking law has proved a 
valuable support of the public credit; and the general 
legislation in relation to loans has fully answered the 
expectations of its favorers. Some amendments may 
be required to perfect existing laws, but no change in 
their principles or general scope is believed to be 
needed. 

Since these measures have been in operation, nil de- 
mands on the treasury, including the pay of the army 
and navy, have been promptly met and fully satisfied. 
No considerable body of troops, it is believed, were ever 
more amply provided, and more liberally and punctu- 
ally paid ; and it may be added, that by no people were 
the burdens incident to a great war ever more cheer- 
fully borne. 

The receipts during the year from all sources, in- 
cluding loans and the balance in the treasury at its 
commencement, were ??001, 12.5,674.86, and the aggregate 
disbursements $895,796,630.65, leaving a balance on the 
1st of July, 1863, of $5,329,04-1.21 Of the receipts ther« 



380 SPEECHES OF ABHAHAM LINCOLN. 

were derived from customs $69,059,642.40; from in- 
ternal revenue, |37,640,787.95 ; from direct tax, $1,- 
485,103.61; from lands, |167,617.17; from miscellane- 
ous sources, $3,046,615.35; and from loans, $776,682, 
361.57 ; making the aggregate, $901,125,674.86. Of the 
disbursements there were for the civil service, $23,- 
253,922.08 ; for pensions and Indians, $4,216,520.79; for 
interest on public debt, $24,729,846.51 ; for the War De- 
partment, $599,298,600.83; for the Navy Department, 
$63,211,105.27; for paj'ment of funded and temporarr 
debt, $181,086, 635.07; making the aggregate, $895,- 
796,630.65, and leaving the balance of $5,329,044.21. 
But the payments of funded and temporary debt, hav- 
ing been made from moneys borrowed during the 
year, must be regarded as merely nominal payments, 
and the moneys borrowed to make them as merely 
nominal receipts; and their amount, $181,086,635.07. 
should therefore be deducted both from receipts and 
disbursements. This being done, there remain as 
actual receipts, $720,039,039.79, and the actual dis- 
bursements, $714,709,995.58, leaving the balance as 
already stated. 

The actual receipts and disbursements for the first 
quarter, and the estimated receipts and disbursements 
for the remaining three quarters, of the current fiscal 
year, 1864, will be shown in detail by the report of the 
Secretary of the Treasury, to which I invite your at- 
tention. It is sufficient to say here that it is not 
believed that actual results will exhibit a state of the 
finances less favorable to the country than the esti- 
mates of that officer heretofore submitted ; while it is 
confidently expected that at the close of the year both 
disbursements and debt will be found very considerably 
less than has been anticipated. 

The report of the Secretary of War is a document of 
great interest. It consists of — 

1. The military operations of the year, detailed in 
the report of the General-in-Chief. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 33 j^ 

2. The organization of colored persons into the war 
service. 

3. The exchange of prisoners, fully set forth in the 
letter of General Hitchcock. 

4. The operations under the act for enrolling and 
calling out the national forces, detailed in the re- 
port of the Provost-Marshal-General. 

5. The organization of the invalid corps; and 

G. The operation of the several departments of the 
Quartermaster-General, Commissary-General, Pay- 
master-General, Chief of Engineers, Chief of Ordnance, 
and Surgeon-General. 

It has appeared impossible to make a valuable sum- 
mary of this report except such as would be too ex- 
tended for this place, and hence I content myself by 
asking your careful attention to the report itself. 

The duties devolving on the naval branch of the 
service during the year, and throughout the whole of 
this unhappy contest, have been discharged with fidelity 
and eminent success. The extensive blockade has been 
constantly increasing in efficiency, as the navy has ex- 
])anded; yet on so long a line it has so far been im- 
j'6ssible to entirely suppress illicit trade. From re- 
turns received at the Navy Department, it appears 
that more than one thousand vessels have been cap- 
tured since the blockade was instituted, and that the 
value of prizes already sent in for adjudication amounts 
to over thirteen millions of dollars. 

The naval force of the United States consists at 
this time of five hundred and eighty-eight vessels, com- 
pleted and in the course of completion, and of these, 
seventy-five are iron-clad or armored steamers. The 
events of the war give an increased interest and impor- 
tance to the navy which will probably extend beyond 
the war itself. 

The armored vessels in our navy, completed and in 
service, or which are under contract and approaching 
completion, are believed to exceed in number those of 



382 SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

any other power. But while these may be relied upon 
for harbor defense and coast service, others of greater 
strength and capacity will be necessary for cruising 
purposes, and to maintain our rightful position on the 
ocean. 

The change that has taken place in naval vessels and 
naval warfare since the introduction of steam as a 
motive power for ships of war demands either a cor- 
responding change in some of our existing navy-yards, 
or the establishment of new ones, for the construction 
and necessary repair of modern naval vessels. No 
inconsiderable embarrassment, delay, and public in- 
jury have been experienced from the want of such 
governmental establishments. The necessity of such a 
navy-yard, so furnished, at some suitable place upon 
the Atlantic seaboard, has on repeated occasions been 
brought to the attention of Congress by the Navy De- 
partment, and is again presented in the report of the 
Secretary which accompanies this communication. I 
think it my duty to invite your special attention to this 
subject, and also to that of establishing a yard and de- 
pot for naval purposes upon one of the western rivers. 
A naval force has been created on those interior waters, 
and under many disadvantages, within little more than 
two years, exceeding in numbers the whole naval force 
of the country at the commencement of the present ad- 
ministration. Satisfactory and important as have been 
the performances of the heroic men of the navy at this 
interesting period, they are scarcely more wonderful 
than the success of our mechanics and artisans in the 
production of war vessels which has created a new 
form of naval power. 

Our country has advantages superior to any other 
nation in our resources of iron and timber, with inex- 
haustible quantities of fuel in the immediate vicinity 
of both, all available, and in close proximity to navi- 
gable waters. Without the advantage of public works 
the resources of the nation have been developed, and its 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 333 

power displayed, in the construction of a navy of such 
magnitude, which has, at the very period of its creation, 
rendered signal service to the Union. 

The increase of the number of seamen in the public 
service, from seven thousand five hundred men, in 
the spring of 1861, to about thirty-four thousand at 
the present time, has been accomplished without special 
legislation, or extraordinary bounties to promote that 
increase. It has been found, however, that the opera- 
tion of the draft, with the high bounties paid for army 
recruits, is beginning to affect injuriously the naval 
service, and will, if not corrected, be likely to impair 
its efiSciency, by detaching seamen from their proper 
vocation and inducing them to enter the army. I 
therefore respectfully suggest that Congress might aid 
both the army and naval services by a definite provis- 
ion on this subject, which would at the same time l)e 
equitable to the communities more especially inter- 
ested. 

I commend to your consideration the suggestion of 
the Secretary of the Navy in regard to the policy of 
fostering and training seamen, and also the education 
of officers and engineers for the naval service. The 
Naval Academy is rendering signal service in prepar- 
ing midshipmen for the highly responsible duties which 
in after life they will be required to perform. In 
order that the country should not be deprived of the 
proper quota of educated officers, for which legal pro- 
vision has been made at the naval school, the vacan- 
cies caused by the neglect or omission to make nomi- 
nations from the State in insurrection have been filled 
by the Secretary of the Navy. The school is now more 
full and complete than at any former period, and in 
every respect entitled to the favorable consideration 
of Congress. 

During the past fiscal year the financial condition 
of the Post Office Department has been one of in- 
creasing prosperity, and I am gratified in being able 



384 SPEECHES OF ABRAHMI LINCOLN. 

to state that the actual postal revenue has nearly 
equaled the entire expenditures; the latter amounting 
to 111,314,206.84, and the former to $11,163,789.59, 
leaving a deficiency of but |150,417.25. In 1860, the 
year immediately preceding the rebellion, the deficiency 
amounted to $5,656,705.49, the postal receipts of that 
year being $2,645,722.10 less than those of 1863. The 
decrease since 1860 in the annual amount of transpor 
tation has been only about 25 per cent., but the annual 
expenditure on account of the same has been reduced 35 
per cent. It is manifest, therefore, that the Post Office 
Department may become self-sustaining in a few years 
ev^en with the restoration of the whole service. 

The international conference of postal delegates 
from the principal countries of Europe and America, 
which was called at the suggestion of the Postmaster- 
General, met at Paris on the 11th of May last, and con- 
cluded its deliberations on the 8th of June. The prin- 
ciples established by the conference as best adapted to 
facilitate postal intercourse between nations, and as 
the basis of future postal conventions, inaugurate a 
general system of uniform international charges, at 
reduced rates of postage, and cannot fail to produce 
beneficial results. 

I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the In- 
terior, which is herewith laid before you, for useful 
and varied information in relation to the public lands, 
Indian affairs, patents, pensions, and other matters 
of public concern pertaining to his department. 

The quantity of land disposed of during the last and 
the first quarter of the present fiscal year was three 
million eight hundred and forty-one thousand five hun- 
dred and forty-nine acres, of which one hundred and 
sixty-one thousand nine hundred and eleven acres were 
sold for cash, one million four hundred and fifty-six 
thousand five hundred and fourteen acres were taken 
up under the homestead law, and the residue disposed 
of under laws granting lands for military bounties, for 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 335 

railroad and other purposes. It also appears that 
the sale of the public lands is largely on the increase. 

It has long been a cherished opinion of some of our 
wisest statesmen that the people of the United States 
had a higher and more enduring interest in the early 
settlement and substantial cultivation of the public 
lands than in the amount of direct revenue to be de- 
rived from the sale of them. This opinion has had a 
controlling influence in shaping legislation upon the 
subject of our national domain. I may cite, as evi- 
dence of this, the liberal measures adopted in refer- 
ence to actual settlers; the grant to the States of the 
overflowed lands within their limits in order to their 
being reclaimed and rendered fit for cultivation; the 
grants to railway companies of alternate sections of 
land upon the contemplated lines of their roads, which, 
when completed, will so largely multiply the facilities 
for reaching our distant possessions. This policy has 
received its most signal and beneficent illustration in 
the recent enactment granting homesteads to actual 
settlers. Since the first day of January last the before- 
mentioned quantity of one million four hundred and 
fifty-six thousand five hundred and fourteen acres of 
land have been taken up under its provisions. This 
fact, and the amount of sales, furnish gratifying evi- 
dence of increasing settlement upon the public lands 
notwithstanding the great struggle in which the ener- 
gies of the nation have been engaged, and which has 
required so large a withdrawal of our citizens from 
their accustomed pursuits. I cordially concur in the 
recommendation of the Secretary of the Interior, sug- 
gesting a modification of the act in favor of those en- 
gaged in the military and naval service of the United 
States. I doubt not that Congress will cheerfully 
adopt such measures as will, without essentially chang- 
ing the general features of the system, secure, to the 
greatest practicable extent, its benefits to those who 
25 



386 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

have left their homes in defense of the country in this 
arduous crisis. 

I invite your attention to the views of the Secretary 
as to the propriety of raising, by appropriate legisla- 
tion, a revenue from the mineral lands of the United 
States. 

The measures provided at your last session for the 
removal of certain Indian tribes have been carried into 
effect. Sundry treaties have been negotiated, which 
will, in due time, be submitted for the constitutional 
action of the Senate. They contain stipulations for 
extinguishing the possessory rights of the Indians to 
large and valuable tracts of land. It is hoped that the 
effect of these treaties will result in the establishment 
of permanent friendly relations with such of these 
tribes as have been brought into frequent and bloody 
collision with our outlying settlements and emigrants. 
Sound policy, and our imperative duty to these wards 
of the government, demand our anxious and constant 
attention to their material well-being, to their progress 
in the arts of civilization, and, above all, to that moral 
training which, under the blessing of Divine Provi- 
dence, will confer upon them the elevated and sancti- 
fying influences, the hopes and consolations, of the 
Christian faith. 

I suggested in my last annual message the propriety 
of remodeling our Indian system. Subsequent events 
have satisfied me of its necessity. The details set forth 
in the report of the Secretary evince the urgent need 
for immediate legislative action. 

I commend the benevolent institutions established or 
patronized by the government in this District to your 
generous and fostering care. 

The attention of Congress, during the last session, 
v/as engaged to some extent with a proposition for en- 
larging the water communication between the Missis- 
sippi River and the northeastern seaboard, which prop- 
osition, however, failed for the time. Since then, upon 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAJH LIXCOLN. gg^ 

a call of the greatest respectability, a convention has 
been held at Chicago upon the same subject, a sum- 
mary of whose views is contained in a memorial ad- 
dressed to the President and Congress, and which I 
now have the honor to lay before you. That this in- 
terest is one which, ere long, will force its own way, I 
do not entertain a doubt, while it is submitted en- 
tirely to your wisdom as to what can be done now. 
Augmented interest is given to this subject by the 
actual commencement of work upon the Pacific rail- 
road, under auspices so favorable to rapid progress 
and completion. The enlarged navigation becomes a 
palpable need to the great road. 

I transmit the second annual report of the Commis- 
sioner of the Department of Agriculture, asking your 
attention to the developments in that vital interest of 
the nation. 

When Congress assembled a year ago the war had 
already lasted nearh- twenty months, and there had 
been many conflicts on both land and sea with varying 
results. The rebellion had been pressed back into re- 
duced limits; yet the tone of public feeling and opinion, 
at home and abroad, was not satisfactory. With other 
signs, the popular elections, then just past, indicated 
uneasiness among ourselves, while, amid much that 
was cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from 
Europe were uttered in accents of pity that we were 
too blind to surrender a hopeless cause. Our com- 
merce was suffering greatly by a few armed vessels 
built upon, and furnished from, foreign shores, and we 
were threatened with such additions from the same 
quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea and 
raise our blockade. We had failed to elicit from Euro- 
pean governments anything hopeful upon this subject. 
The preliminary emancipation proclamation, issued 
in September, was running its assigned ])eriod to the be- 
ginning of the new year. A month later the final procla- 
mation came, including the announcement that colored 



388 SPEECHES OF ABRAHA^I LIXCOLX. 

men of suitable condition would be received into the 
war service. The policy of emancipation, and of em- 
ploying black soldiers, gave to the future a new aspect, 
about which hope, and fear, and doubt contended in 
uncertain conflict. According to our political system, 
as a matter of civil administration, the General 
Government had no lawful power to effect emanci- 
pation in any State, and for a long time it had been' 
hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed without 
resorting to it as a military measure. It was all the 
while deemed possible that the necessity for it might 
come, and that if it should, the crisis of the contest 
would then be presented. It came, and, as was antici- 
pated, it was followed by dark and doubtful days. 
Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted 
to take another review. The rebel borders are pressed 
still further back, and, by the complete opening of the 
Mississippi, the country dominated by the rebellion is 
divided into distinct parts, with no practical communi- 
cation between them. Tennessee and Arkansas have 
been substantially cleared of insurgent control, and 
influential citizens in each, owners of slaves and ad- 
vocates of slavery at the beginning of the rebellion, now 
declare openly for emancipation in their respective 
States. Of those States not included in the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of 
which three years ago would tolerate any restraint up- 
on the extension of slavery into new Territories, only 
dispute now as to the best mode of removing it within 
their own limits. 

Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the re- 
bellion, full one hundred thousand are now in the 
United States military service, about one half of which 
number actually bear arms in the ranks; thus giving 
the double advantage of taking so much labor from the 
insurgent cause, and supplying the places which other- 
wise must be filled with so many white men. So far as 
tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 



389 



as any. Xo servile insurrection, or tendency to violence 
or cruelty, has marked the measures of emancipation 
and arming the blacks. The measures have been much 
discussed in foreign countries, and contemporary with 
such discussion the tone of public sentiment there is 
much improved. At home the same measures have been 
fully discussed, supported, criticized, and denounced, 
and the annual elections following are highly encourag- 
ing to those whose official duty it is to bear the country 
through this great trial. Thus we have the new reckon- 
ing. The crisis which threatened to divide the friends 
of the Union is past. 

Looking now to the present and future, and with ref- 
erence to a resumption of the national authority with- 
in the States wherein that authority has been sus- 
pended, I have thought fit to issue a proclamation, a 
copy of which is herewith transmitted. On examina- 
tion of this proclamation it will appear, as is believed, 
that nothing is attempted beyond what is amply justi- 
fied by the Constitution. True, the form of an oath is 
given, but no man is coerced to take it. The man is 
only promised a pardon in case he voluntarily takes 
the oath. The Constitution authorizes the executive 
to grant or withhold the pardon at his own absolute 
discretion; and this includes the power to grant on 
terms, as is fully established by judicial and other 
authorities. 

It is also proffered that if, in any of the States 
named, a State government shall be, in the mode pre- 
scribed, set up, such government shall be recognized 
and guaranteed by the United States, and that under 
it the State shall, on the constitutional conditions, be 
protected against invasion and domestic violence. The 
constitutional obligation of the United States to 
guarantee to every State in the Union a republican 
form of government, and to protect the State in the 
cases stated, is explicit and full. But why tender the 
benefits of this provision only to a State government 



390 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

set up in this particular way? This section of the Con- 
stitution contemplates a case wherein the element 
within a State favorable to republican government in 
the Union may be too feeble for an opposite and hostile 
element external to, or even within, the State; and 
such are precisely the cases with which we are now 
dealing. 

An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived State 
government, constructed in whole, or in preponderating 
part, from the very element against whose hostility 
and violence it is to be protected, is simply absurd. 
There must be a test by which to separate the oppos- 
ing elements, so as to build only from the sound ; and 
that test is a sufficiently liberal one which accepts as 
sound whoever will make a sworn recantation of his 
former unsoundness. 

But if it be proper to require, as a test of admission 
to the political body, an oath of allegiance to the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and to the Union under 
it, why also to the laws and proclamations in regard 
to slavery? Those laws and proclamations were en- 
acted and put forth for the purpose of aiding in the 
suppression of the rebellion. To give them their fullest 
effect, there had to be a pledge for their maintenance. 
In my judgment they have aided, and will further aid, 
the cause for which they were intended. To now 
abandon them would be not only to relinquish a lever 
of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding 
breach of faith. I may add, at this point, that while I 
remain in my present position I shall not attempt to 
retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation ; nor 
shall I return to slavery any person who is free by 
the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of 
Congress. For these and other reasons it is thought 
best that support of these measures shall be included 
in the oath; and it is believed the executive may law- 
fully claim it in return for pardon and restoration of 
forfeited rights, which he has clear constitutional 



SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 39^1 

power to withhold altogether, or grant upon the terms 
which he shall deem wisest for the public interest. It 
should be observed, also, that this part of the oath is 
subject to the modifying and abrogating power of 
legislation and supreme judicial decision. 

The proposed acquiescence of the national executive 
in any reasonable temporary State arrangement for 
the freed people is made with the view of possibly 
modifying the confusion and destitution which must 
at best attend all classes by a total revolution of labor 
throughout whole States. It is hoped that the already 
deeply afflicted people in those States may be some- 
what more ready to give up the cause of their affliction, 
if, to this extent, this vital matter be left to them- 
selves; while no fjower of the national executive to 
prevent an abuse is abridged by the proposition. 

The suggestion in the proclamation as to maintain- 
ing the political framework of the States on what is 
called reconstruction is made in the hope that it may 
do good without danger of harm. It will save labor, 
and avoid great confusion. 

But why any proclamation now upon this subject? 
This question is beset with the conflicting views that 
the step might be delayed too long or be taken too 
soon. In some States the elements for resumption 
seem ready for action, but remain inactive apparently 
for want of a rallying-point — a plan of action. Why 
shall A adopt the plan of B, rather than B that of A? 
And if A and B should agree, how can they know but 
that the General Government here will reject their 
plan? By the proclamation a plan is presented which 
may be accepted by them as a rallying-point, and 
which they are assured in advance will not be rejected 
here. This may bring them to act sooner than they 
otherwise would. 

The objection to a premature presentation of a plan 
by the national executive consists in the danger of 
committals on points which could be more safely left 



§92 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN?. 

to further developments. Care has been taken to so 
shape the document as to avoid embarrassments from 
this source. Saying that, on certain terms, certain 
classes will be pardoned, with rights restored, it is not 
said that other classes, or other terms, will never be 
included. Saying that reconstruction will be accepted 
if presented in a specified way, it is not said it will 
never be accepted in any other way. 

The movements, by State action, for emancipation in 
several of the States not included in the Emancipation 
Proclamation, are matters of profound gratulation. 
And while I do not repeat in detail what I have here- 
tofore so earnestly urged upon this subject, my general 
views and feelings remain unchanged; and I trust that 
Congress will omit no fair opportunity of aiding these 
important steps to a great consummation. 

In the midst of other cares, however important, we 
must not lose sight of the fact that the war power is 
still our main reliance. To that power alone can we 
look, yet for a time, to give confidence to the people in 
the contested regions that the insurgent power will not 
again overrun them. Until that confidence shall be estab- 
lished, little can be done anywhere for what is called 
reconstruction. Hence our chiefest care must still be 
directed to the army and navy, who have thus far 
borne their harder part so nobly and well. And it may 
be esteemed fortunate that in giving the greatest 
efficiency to these indispensable arms, we do also 
honorably recognize the gallant men, from commander 
to sentinel, who compose them, and to whom, more 
than to others, the world must stand indebted for the 
home of freedom disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, 
and perpetuated. 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 393 



ADDRESS AT SANITARY FAIR IN BALTIMORE, 
APRIL 18, 1864. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: CalliDg to mind that we are 
in Baltimore, we cannot fail to note that the world 
moves. Looking upon these many people assembled 
here to serve, as they best may, the soldiers of the 
Union, it occurs at once that three years ago the same 
soldiers could not so much as pass through Baltimore. 
The change from then till now is both great and gratify- 
ing. Blessings on the brave men who have wrought the 
change, and the fair women who strive to reward them 
for it ! 

But Baltimore suggests more than could happen 
within Baltimore. The change within Baltimore is 
part only of a far wider change. When the war began, 
three years ago, neither party, nor any man, expected 
it would last till now. Each looked for the end, in 
some way, long ere to-day. Neither did any anticipate 
that domestic slavery would be much affected by the 
war. But here we are ; the war has not ended, and 
slavery has been much affected — how much needs not 
now to be recounted. So true is it that man proposes 
and God disposes. 

But we can see the past, though we may not claim to 
have directed it; and seeing it, in this case, we feel 
more hopeful and confident for the future. 

The world has never had a good definition of the 
word liberty, and the American people just now, are 
much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but 
in using the same word we do not all mean the same 
thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each 
man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product 
of his labor; while with others the same word ma/^ 



394 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

mean for some men to do as they please with other 
men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are 
two, not only different, but incompatible things, called 
by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each 
of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two 
different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny. 

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, 
for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his libera- 
tor, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as 
the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a 
black one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not 
agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and pre- 
cisely the same difference prevails to-day among us 
human creatures, even in the North, and all professing 
to love liberty. Hence we behold the process by which 
thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of 
bondage hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and 
bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. 
Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been 
doing something to define liberty, and thanks to them 
that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary has 
been repudiated. 

It is not very becoming for one in my position to 
make speeches at great length; but there is another 
subject upon which I feel that I ought to say a word. 

A painful rumor — true, I fear — has reached us of the 
massacre by the rebel forces at Fort Pillow, in the west 
end of Tennessee, on the Mississippi River, of some 
three hundred colored soldiers and white officers, who 
had just been overpowered by their assailants. There 
seems to be some anxiety in the public mind whether 
the government is doing its duty to the colored soldier, 
and to the service, at this point. At the beginning of 
the war, and for some time, the use of colored troops 
was not contemplated ; and how the change of purpose 
was wrought I will not now take time to explain. 
Upon a clear conviction of duty I resolved to turn that 
element of strength to account; and I am responsible 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 395 

for it to the American people, to the Christian world, 
to history, and in my final account to God. Having 
determined to use the negro as a soldier, there is no 
way but to give him all the protection given to any 
other soldier. The difficulty is not in stating the 
principle, but in practically applying it. It is a mis- 
take to suppose the government is indifferent to this 
matter, or is not doing the best it can in regard to it. 
We do not to-day know that a colored soldier, or white 
officer commanding colored soldiers, has been massacred 
by the rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it, — 
believe it, I may say, — but we do not know it. To 
take the life of one of their prisoners on the assumption 
that they murder ours, when it is short of certainty 
that they do murder ours, might be too serious, too 
cruel, a mistake. We are having the Fort Pillow 
affair thoroughly investigated; and such investigation 
will probably show conclusively how the truth is. If 
after all that has been said it shall turn out that there 
has been no massacre at Fort Pillow, it will be almost 
safe to say there has been none, and will be none, 
elsewhere. If there has been the massacre of three 
hundred there, or even the tenth part of three hundred, 
it will be conclusively proved; and being so proved, 
the retribution shall as surely come. It will be matter 
of grave consideration in what exact course to apply 
the retribution; but in the supposed case it must 
come. 



396 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



SPEECH AT A SANITARY FAIR IN PHILADEL- 
PHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, JUNE 16, 1864. 

I SUPPOSE that this toast was intended to open the 
way for me to say something. 

War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in 
its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most 
terrible. It has deranged business, totally in many 
localities, and partially in all localities. It has de- 
stroyed property and ruined homes; it has produced a 
national debt and taxation unprecedented, at least in 
this country ; it has carried mourning to almost every 
home, until it can almost be said that the " heavens are 
hung in black." 

Yet the war continues, and several relieving coinci- 
dents have accompanied it from the very beginning 
which have not been known, as I understand, or have 
any knowledge of, in any former wars in the history of 
the world. The Sanitary Commission, with all its 
benevolent labors; the Christian Commission, with all 
its Christian and benevolent labors; and the various 
places, arrangements, so to speak, and institutions, 
have contributed to the comfort and relief of the 
soldiers. You have two of these places in this city — 
the Cooper Shop and Union Volunteer Refreshment 
Saloons. And lastly, these fairs, which, I believe, 
began only last August, if I mistake not, in Chicago, 
then at Boston, at Cincinnati, Brooklyn, New York, 
and Baltimore, and those at present held at St. Louis, 
Pittsburg, and Philadelphia. The motive and object 
that lie at the bottom of all these are most worthy ; for, 
say what you will, after all, the most is due to the 
soldier who takes his life in his hands and goes to fight 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 397 

the battles of his country. In what is contributed to 
his comfort when he passes to and fro, and in what is 
contributed to him when he is sick and wounded, in 
whatever shape it comes, whether from the fair and 
tender hand of woman, or from any other source, it is 
much, very much. But I think that there is still that 
which is of as much value to him in the continual 
reminders he sees in the newspapers that while he is 
absent he is yet remembered by the loved ones at home. 
Another view of these various institutions, if I may 
so call them, is worthy of consideration, I think. 
They are voluntar}- contributions, given zealously and 
earnestly, on top of all the disturbances of business, 
of all the disorders, of all the taxation, and of all the 
burdens that the war has imposed upon us, giving 
proof that the national resources are not at all ex- 
hausted, and that the national spirit of patriotism is 
even firmer and stronger than at the commencement of 
the war. 

It is a pertinent question, often asked in the mind 
privately, and from one to the other, when is the war to 
end? Surely I feel as deep an interest in this question 
as any other can ; but I do not wish to name a day, a 
month, or a year, when it is to end. I do not wish to 
run any risk of seeing the time come without our being 
ready for the end, for fear of disappointment because 
the time had come and not the end. We accepted this 
war for an object, a worthy object, and the war will 
end when that object is attained. Under God, I hope 
it never will end until that time. Speaking of the 
present campaign, General Grant is reported to have 
said, " I am going through on this line if it takes all 
summer." This war has taken three years; it was 
begun or accepted upon the line of restoring the na- 
tional authority over the whole national domain, and 
for the American people, as far as my knowledge 
enables me to speak, I say we are going through on this 
line if it takes three years more. 



398 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAil LINCOLN. 

My friends, I did not know but that I might be called 
upon to say a few words before I got away from here, 
but I did not know it was coming just here. I have 
never been in the habit of making predictions in regard 
to the war, but I am almost tempted to make one. If 
I were to hazard it, it is this : That Grant is this 
evening, with General Meade and General Hancock, 
and the brave oflBcers and soldiers with him, in a posi- 
tion from whence he will never be dislodged until 
Richmond is taken ; and I have but one single proposi- 
tion to put now, and perhaps I can best put it in the 
form of an interrogative. If I shall discover that 
General Grant and the noble oflScers and men under 
him can be greatly facilitated in their work by a sudden 
pouring forward of men and assistance, will you give 
them to me? Are you ready to march? [Cries of 
" Yes."] Then I say. Stand ready, for I am watching 
for the chance. I thank you, gentlemen. 



ADDRESS TO THE 166TH OHIO REGIMENT, 
AUG. 22, 1864. 

Soldiers: I suppose you are going home to see your 
families and friends. For the services you have done 
in this great struggle in which we are all engaged, I 
present you sincere thanks for myself and the country. 

I almost always feel inclined, when I happen to say 
anything to soldiers, to impress upon them, in a few 
brief remarks, the importance of success in this con- 
test. It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to 
come, that we should perpetuate for our children's 
children that great and free government which we 
have enjoyed all our lives. I beg you to remember 
this, not merely for my sake, but for yours. I happen, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 399 

temporarily, to occup}- this White House. I am a 
living witness that any one of your children may look 
to come here as my father's child has. It is in order 
that each one of you may have,, through this free 
government which we have enjoyed, an open field and 
a fair chance for your industry, enterprise, and intelli- 
gence; that you may all have equal privileges in the 
race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations. 
It is for this the struggle should be maintained, that 
we may not lose our birthright — not only for one, but 
for two or three years. The nation is worth fighting 
for, to secure such an inestimable jewel. 



ADDRESS TO THE 148TH OHIO REGIMENT, 
AUGUST 31, 1864. 

Soldiers of the 148th Ohio : 

I am most happy to meet you on this occasion. I 
understand that it has been your honorable privilege to 
stand, for a brief period, in the defense of your 
country, and that now you are on your way to your 
homes. I congratulate you, and those who are waiting 
to bid you welcome home from the war; and permit 
me in the name of the people to thank you for the part 
you have taken in this struggle for the life of the na- 
tion. You are soldiers of the republic, everywhere 
honored and respected. Whenever I appear before a 
body of soldiers, I feel tempted to talk to them of the 
nature of the struggle in which we are engaged. I 
look upon it as an attempt on the one hand to over- 
whelm and destroy the national existence, while on 
our part we are striving to maintain the government 
and institutions of our fathers, to enjoy them our- 
selves, and transmit them to our children and our 
children's children forever. 



400 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

To do this the constitutional administration of our 
government must be sustained, and I beg of you not to 
allow your minds or your hearts to be diverted from 
the support of all necessary measures for that pur- 
pose, by any miserable picayune arguments addressed 
to your pockets, or inflammatory appeals made to your 
passions and your prejudices. 

It is vain and foolish to arraign this man or that for 
the part he has taken or has not taken, and to hold the 
government responsible for his acts. In no administra- 
tion can there be perfect equality of action and uniform 
satisfaction rendered by all. 

But this government must be preserved in spite of 
the acts of any man or set of men. It is worthy of 
your every effort. Nowhere in the world is presented 
a government of so much liberty and equality. To the 
humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the 
highest privileges and positions. The present moment 
finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a 
chance for your children as there was for my father's. 

Again I admonish you not to be turned from your 
stern purpose of defending our beloved country and its 
free institutions by any arguments urged by ambitious 
and designing men, but to stand fast for the Union and 
the old flag. 

Soldiers, I bid you God-speed to your homes. 



PKOCLAMATION OF THANKSGIVING, 
OCTOBER 20, 1864. 

It has pleased almighty God to prolong our national 
life another year, defending us with his guardian care 
against unfriendly designs from abroad, and vouch- 
safing to us in his mercy many and signal victories 
over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAJtl LINCOLN. 4Q;[ 

also pleased our heavenly Father to favor as well our 
citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps, 
and our sailors on the rivers and seas, with unusual 
health. He has largely augmented our free population 
by emancipation and by immigration, while he has 
opened to us new sources of wealth, and has crowned 
the labor of our working-men in every department of 
industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, he has 
been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and 
hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution suffi- 
cient for the great trial of civil war into which we have 
been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause 
of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reason- 
able hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from 
all our dangers and afflictions. 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the 
last Thursday of November next as a day which I 
desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever 
they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise 
to almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of 
the universe. And I do further recommend to my 
fellow-citizens aforesaid, that on that occasion they do 
reverently humble themselves in the dust, and from 
thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and 
supplications to the great Disposer of events for a 
return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and 
harmony throughout the land which it has pleased him 
to assign as a dwelling-place for ourselves and for our 
posterity throughout all generations. 
26 



402 SPEECHES or ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



RESPONSE TO A SERENADE, NOVEMBER 10, 

1864. 

It has long been a grave question whether any 
government, not too strong for the liberties of its 
people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence 
in great emergencies. On this point the present re- 
bellion brought our republic to a severe test, and a 
presidential election occurring in regular course dur- 
ing the rebellion, added not a little to the strain. 

If the loyal people united were put to the utmost of 
their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail 
when divided and partially paralyzed by a political 
war among themselves? But the election was a 
necessity. We cannot have free government without 
elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego 
or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim 
to have already conquered and ruined us. The strife 
of the election is but human nature practically applied 
to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this 
case must ever recur in similar cases. Human nature 
will not change. In any future great national trial, 
compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak 
and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. 
Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as phil- 
osophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as 
wrongs to be revenged. But the election, along with 
its incidental and undesirable strife, has done good 
too. It has demonstrated that a people's government 
can sustain a national election in the midst of a great 
civil war. Until now, it has not been known to the 
world that this was a possibility. It shows, also, how 
sound and how strong we still are. It shows that, 
even among candidates of the same party, he who is 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 493 

most devoted to the Union and most opposed to treason 
can receive most of the people's votes. It shows, also, 
to the extent yet known, that we have more men 
now than we had when the war began. Gold is good 
in its place, but living, brave, patriotic men are better 
than gold. 

But the rebellion continues, and now that the elec- 
tion is over, may not all having a common interest 
reunite in a common effort to save our common 
country? For my own part, I have striven and shall 
strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So 
long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a 
thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible 
to the high compliment of a reelection, and duly grate- 
ful, as I trust, to almighty God for having directed 
my countrj'men to a right conclusion, as I think, for 
their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that 
any other man ma}' be disappointed or pained by the 
result. 

May I ask those who have not differed with me to 
join with me in this same spirit toward those who 
have? And now let me close by asking three hearty 
cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen and their 
gallant and skilful commanders. 



404 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, DEC. 6, 1864 

[In this Message, the extracts from which are confined to the 
portions of vital interest, the evidences are multiplied of the ap- 
proaching end of the war, with the maintenance of the Union. 
Just before the Message was delivered, the military events in- 
dicated that the power of the Confederacy was on the wane. 
Sherman had begun his famous March to the Sea^ which was to 
bring the President his Christmas gift, in the capture of 
Savannah: Grant was doggedly hammering away, keeping skilful 
watch on Lee's terrible Army of Northern Virginia; while in 
August, Farragut had captured Mobile, and other successes on 
land and sea were now speedily to follow, which brought the un- 
natural strife to a final close. Lincoln, moreover, in spite of 
the unpopular draft, of 500,000 men, in July, and a summer and 
autumn of severe fighting, both East and West^ had been re- 
elected to the Presidency ; while he was soon to be gratified by the 
final passing of the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution by 
which slavery was to be maae forever impossible in the United 
States. These were among the happy events which give interest 
to the present Congressional Message]. 

In a great national crisis like ours, unanimity of 
action among those seeking a common end is very 
desirable — almost indispensable. And yet no ap- 
proach to such unanimity is attainable unless some 
deference shall be paid to the will of the majority, 
simply because it is the will of the majority. In this 
case the common end is the maintenance of the Union, 
and among the means to secure that end, such will, 
through the election, is most clearly declared in favor 
of such constitutional amendment. 

The most reliable indication of public purpose in 
this country is derived through our popular elections. 
Judging by the recent canvass and its result, the pur- 
pose of the people within the loyal States to maintain 
the integrity of the Union, was never more firm nor 
more nearly unanimous than now. The extraordinary 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 405 

calmness and good order with which the millions of 
voters met and mingled at the polls give strong assur- 
ance of this. Not only all those who supported the 
Union ticket, so called, but a great majority of the 
opposing party also, may be fairly claimed to enter- 
tain, and to be actuated by, the same purpose. It is 
an unanswerable argument to this effect, that no candi- 
date for any office whatever, high or low, has ventured 
to seek votes on the avowal that he was for giving up 
the Union, There has been much impugning of mo- 
tives, and much heated controversy as to the proper 
means and best mode of advancing the Union cause; 
but on the distinct issue of Union or no Union the 
politicians have shown their instinctive knowledge 
that there is no diversity among the people. In afford- 
ing the people the fair opportunity of showing one to 
another and to the world this firmness and unanimity 
of purpose, the election has been of vast value to the 
national cause. 

The election has exhibited another fact, not less 
valuable to be known — the fact that we do not ap- 
proach exhaustion in the most important branch of 
national resources — that of living men. While it is 
melancholy to reflect that the war has filled so many 
graves, and carried mourning to so many hearts, it is 
some relief to know that compared with the surviving, 
the fallen have been so few. While corps, and di- 
visions, and brigades, and regiments have formed, and 
fought, and dwindled, and gone out of existence, a 
great majority of the men who composed them are 
still living. The same is true of the naval service. 
The election returns prove this. So many voters 
could not else be found. The States regularly holding 
elections, both now and four years ago — to wit : Cali- 
fornia, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, 
Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, 
Minnesota, Missouri, Xew Hampshire, New Jersey. New 
York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, 



406 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 

Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin — cast 
3,982,011 votes now, against 3,870,222 cast then ; show- 
ing an aggregate now of 3,982,011. To this is to be 
added 33,762 cast now in the new States of Kansas 
and Nevada, which States did not vote in 1860; thus 
swelling the aggregate to 4,015,773, and the net in- 
crease during the three years and a half of war, to 
145,551. A table is appended, showing particulars. 
To this again should be added the number of all sol- 
diers in the field from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
New Jersey, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, and Cali- 
fornia, who by the laws of those States could not vote 
away from their homes, and which number cannot be 
less than 90,000. Nor yet is this all. The number in 
organized Territories is triple now what it was four 
years ago, while thousands, white and black, join us as 
the national arms press back the insurgent lines. So 
much is shown, affirmatively and negatively, by the 
election. 

It is not material to inquire how the increase has 
been produced, or to show that it would have been 
greater but for the war, which is probably true. The 
important fact remains demonstrated that we have 
more men now than we had when the war began ; that 
we are not exhausted, nor in process of exhaustion ; 
that we are gaining strength, and may, if need be, 
maintain the contest indefinitely. This as to men. 
Material resources are now more complete and abun- 
dant than ever. 

The national resources, then, are unexhausted, and, as 
we believe, inexhaustible. The public purpose to re- 
establish and maintain the national authority is un- 
changed, and, as we believe, unchangeable. The 
manner of continuing the effort remains to choose. 
On careful consideration of all the evidence accessible, 
it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the 
insurgent leader could result in any good. He would 
accept nothing short of severance of the Union — • 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



407 



precisely wbat we will not and cannot give. His de- 
clarations to this effect are explicit and oft repeated. 
He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no 
excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily 
re-accept the Union; we cannot voluntarily yield it. 

Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and 
inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by 
war, and decided by victory. If we yield, we are 
beaten; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. 
Either way it w^ould be the victory and defeat follow- 
ing war. What is true, however, of him who heads 
the insurgent cause, is not necessarily true of those 
who follow. Although he cannot re-accept the Union, 
they can. Some of them, we know, already desire 
peace and reunion. The number of such may increase. 

They can at any moment have peace simply by lay- 
ing down their arms and submitting to the national 
authority under the Constitution. After so much the 
government could not, if it would, maintain war 
against them. The loyal people would not sustain or 
allow it. If questions should remain, we would ad- 
just them by the peaceful means of legislation, con- 
ference, courts, and votes, operating only in constitu- 
tional and lawful channels. Some certain, and other 
possible, questions are, and would be, beyond the ex- 
ecutive power to adjust; as, for instance, the admission 
of members into Congress, and whatever might require 
the appropriation of money. The executive power 
itself would be greatly diminished by the cessation of 
actual war. Pardons and remissions of forfeitures, 
however, w'ould still be within executive control. In 
what spirit and temper this control would be exercised, 
can be fairly judged of by the past. 

A year ago general pardon and amnesty, upon 
specified terms, were offered to all except certain desig- 
nated classes, and it was at the same time made known 
that the excepted classes were still within contempla- 
tion of special clemency. During the year many 



408 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

availed themselves of the general provision, and many 
more would only that the signs of bad faith in some 
led to such precautionary measures as rendered the 
practical process less easy and certain. During the 
same time, also, special pardons have been granted to 
individuals of the excepted classes, and no voluntary 
application has been denied. 

Thus, practically, the door has been for a full year 
open to all, except such as were not in condition to 
make free choice — that is, such as were in custody or 
under constraint. It is still so open to all; but the 
time may come — probably will come — when public 
duty shall demand that it be closed; and that in lieu 
more rigorous measures than heretofore shall be 
adopted. 

In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance 
to the national authority on the part of the insurgents 
as the only indispensable condition to ending the war 
on the part of the government, I retract nothing hereto- 
fore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made 
a year ago, that " while I remain in my present posi- 
tion I shall not attempt to retract or modify the 
Emancipation Proclamation, nor shall I return to 
slavery any person who is free by the terms of that 
proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress." 

If the people should, by whatever mode or means, 
make it an executive duty to reenslave such persons, 
another, and not I, must be their instrument to per- 
form it. 

In stating a single condition of peace, I mean simply 
to say, that the war will cease on the part of the 
government whenever it shall have ceased on the part 
of those who began it. 




Assassination of Lincoln 



SPEECHEJs; OF AURAHAM LINCOLN. 



409 



SECOND INAUGUKAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 18G5. 

[With this Second Inaugural the great work was nearly done 
which Lincoln was providentially raised up to do, in guiding the 
nation through the tempestuous scenes of the terrible Civil War, 
in ridding the land of the blighting curse of slavery, and in 
restoring the sorely distracted, dissevered, but now about to be 
reunited, Union. Precisely two months later, at the cemetery in 
Springfield. 111., Lincoln's home, the Inaugural was read over the 
martyred President's grave. It is a masterly production, and is 
perhaps the most characteristic embodiment of Lincoln's genius, 
filled as it is with lofty sentiment, and reaching the highwater 
mark of the political wisdom of the age. Well may the London 
Times speak of it at the era as '' the most sublime State paper 
of the centui'y."]. 

Fellow-country men: At this second appearing to 
take the oath of the presidential oflSce, there is less 
occasion for an extended address than there was at the 
first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a 
course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, 
at the expiration of four years, during which public 
declarations have been constantly called forth on every 
point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs 
the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, 
little that is new could be presented. The progress 
of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as 
well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I 
trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. 
With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard 
to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years 
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an im- 
pending civil war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert 
it. While the inaugural address was IxMng delivered 
from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union 
without war, insurgent agents were in the city seek- 



410 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ing to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the 
Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties 
deprecated war; but one of them would make war 
rather than let the nation survive; and the other would 
accept war rather than let it perish. And the war 
came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored 
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but 
localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves con- 
stituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew 
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. 
To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was 
the object for which the insurgents would rend the 
Union, even by war; while the government claimed no 
right to do more than to restrict the territorial en- 
largement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or 
the duration which it has already attained. Neither 
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease 
with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. 
Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less 
fundamental and astounding. Both read the same 
Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes 
his aid against the other. It may seem strange that 
any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in 
wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's 
faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. 
The prayers of both could not be answered — that of 
neither has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto 
the world because of offenses! for it must needs be 
that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the 
offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American 
slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence 
of God, must needs come, but which, having continued 
through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, 
and that he gives to both North and South this terrible 
:war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



411 



shall we discern therein any departure from those 
divine attributes which the believers in a living God 
always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope — fer- 
vently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war 
may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it 
continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's 
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be 
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the 
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, 
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must 
be said, '' The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none; with charity for all ; with 
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind 
up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have 
borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to 
do all which may achieve and cherish a just and last- 
ing peace among ourselves, and with all nations. 



412 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS, APRIL 11, 1865. 

[This, the final public utterance we have of Lincoln's, was de- 
livered in Washington just three days before his martyred death. 
The close of the great war had by this time practically come, 
for earlier in the month the Confederates had evacuated Rich- 
mond, and two days before the speech was spoken Lee had sur- 
rendered with his army to Grant at Appomattox. The Address, 
it will be seen, rejoices over these events and gratefully an- 
nounces the President's intention of calling for a national thanks- 
giving. In other respects, the Address deals with the problem of 
reconstruction and the reinauguration, in the late seceded States, 
of the national authority]. 

We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness 
of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Rich- 
mond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent 
army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose 
joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the midst 
of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow must 
not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving 
is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor 
must those whose harder part give us the cause of re- 
joicing be overlooked. Their honors must not be par- 
celed out with others. I myself was near the front, 
and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of the 
good news to you ; but no part of the honor for plan 
or execution is mine. To General Grant, his skilful 
oflBcers and brave men, all belongs. The gallant navy 
stood ready, but was not in reach to take active part. 

By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 
national authority — reconstruction — which has had a 
large share of thought from the first, is pressed much 
more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with 
great diflSculty. Unlike a case of war between in- 
dependent nations, there is no authorized organ for us 
to treat with — no one man has authority to give up the 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 4^3 

rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin 
with and mold from disorganized and discordant ele- 
ments. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment 
that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to 
the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. As 
a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports 
of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by 
that to which I cannot properly offer an answer. In 
spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowl- 
edge that I am much censured for some supposed 
agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new 
State government of Louisiana. 

In this I have done just so much as, and no more 
than, the public knows. In the annual message of 
December, 1863, and in the accompanying proclama- 
tion, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase 
goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, should 
be acceptable to and sustained by the executive govern- 
ment of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was 
not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable, 
and I also distinctly protested that the executive 
claimed no right to say when or whether members 
should be admitted to seats in Congress from such 
States. This plan was in advance submitted to the 
then Cabinet, and distinctly approved by every member 
of it. One of them suggested that I should then and 
in that connection apply the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion to the theretofore excepted parts of Virginia and 
Louisiana; that I should drop the suggestion about 
apprenticeship for freed people, and that I should omit 
the protest against my own power in regard to the 
admission of members to Congress. Rut even he ap- 
proved every part and parcel of the plan which has 
since been employed or touched by the action of 
Louisiana. 

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emanci- 
pation for the whole State, practically applies the 
proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does 



414' SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and it is 
silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the 
admission of members to Congress. So that, as it 
applies to Louisiana, every member of the cabinet 
fully approved the plan. The message went to Con- 
gress, and I received many commendations of the plan, 
written and verbal, and not a single objection to it 
from any professed emancipationist came to my knowl- 
edge until after the news reached Washington that the 
people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance 
with it. From about July, 1862, I had corresponded 
with different persons supposed to be interested [in] 
seeking a reconstruction of a State government for 
Louisiana. When the message of 1863, with the plan 
before mentioned, reached New Orleans, General Banks 
wrote me that he was confident that the people, with 
his military cooperation, would reconstruct substan- 
tially on that plan. I wrote to him and some of them 
to try it. They tried it, and the result is known. 
Such has been my only agency in getting up the 
Louisiana government. 

As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before 
stated. But as bad promises are better broken than 
kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it 
whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse 
to the public interest ; but I have not yet been so con- 
vinced. I have been shown a letter on this subject, 
supposed to be an able one, in which the writer ex- 
presses regret that my mind has not seemed to be 
definitely fixed on the question whether the seceded 
States, so called, are in the Union or out of it. It 
would perhaps add astonishment to his regret were 
he to learn that since I have found professed Union 
men endeavoring to make that question, I have pur- 
posely forborne any public expression upon it. As 
appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, 
a practically material one, and that any discussion 
of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 4^5 

could have no effect other than the mischievous one of 
dividing our friends. As yet, wiiatever it may here- 
after become, that question is bad as the basis of 
a controversy, and good for nothing at all— a merely 
pernicious abstraction. 

We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are 
out of their proper practical relation with the Tuion, 
and that the sole object of the government, civil and 
military, in regard to those States is to again get 
them into that proper practical relation. I believe 
that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this 
without deciding or even considering whether these 
States have ever been out of the Union, than with it. 
Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly 
immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Ix't 
us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring \ho 
proper practical relations between these States and 
the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge 
his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought 
the States from without into the I'nion. or only gave 
them proper assistance, they never having been out 
of it. The amount of constituency, so to si)eak. on 
which the new Louisiana government rests, would be 
more satisfactory to all if it contained 50,000. or 
30,000, or even 20.000, instead of only about 12,000. as 
it does. It is also unsatisfactory to some that th»« 
elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I 
would myself prefer that it were now conferred on tho 
very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause n.«« 
soldiers. 

Still, the question is not whetlicr the Louisinna 
government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. 
The question is, will it be wiser to take it as if is and 
help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it? Tan 
Louisiana be brought into proper practical relntion 
with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding 
her new State government? Some twelve thousan<l 
voters in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have 



416 SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the right- 
ful political power of the State, held elections, or- 
ganized a State government, adopted a free-State 
constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally 
to black and white, and empowering the legislature to 
confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. 
Their legislature has already voted to ratify the con- 
stitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, 
abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 
12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the Union 
and to perpetual freedom in the State — committed to 
the very things, and nearly all the things, the nation 
wants — and they ask the nation's recognition and its 
assistance to make good their committal. 

Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost 
to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say 
to the white man : You are worthless or worse ; we 
will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the 
blacks we say: This cup of liberty which these, your 
old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, 
and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled 
and scattered contents in some vague and undefined 
when, where, and how. If this course, discouraging 
and paralyzing both white and black, has any tendency 
to bring Louisiana into proper practical relations with 
the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. 
If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new 
government of Louisiana, the converse of all this is 
made true. We encourage the hearts and nerve the 
arms of the 12,000 to adhere to their work, and argue 
for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, 
and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The 
colored man, too, in seeing all united for him, is in- 
spired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the 
same end. Grant that he desires the elective fran- 
chise, will he not attain it sooner by saving the already 
advanced steps toward it than by running backward 
over them? Concede that the new government of 



SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 4^7 

Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to 
the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching 
the egg than by smashing it. 

Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject one 
vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the na- 
tional Constitution. To meet this proposition it has 
been argued that no more than three-fourths of those 
States which have not attempted secession are neces- 
sary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit 
myself against this further than to say that such a 
ratification would be questionable, and sure to be per- 
,sistently questioned, while a ratification by three- 
fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and 
unquestionable. I repeat the question : Can Louisiana 
be brought into proper practical relation with the 
Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new 
State government? What has been said of Louisiana 
will apply generally to other States. And yet so great 
peculiarities pertain to each State, and such important 
and sudden changes occur in the same State, and 
withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case 
that no exclusive and inflexible ^jlan can safely be 
prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such ex- 
clusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new 
entanglement. Important principles may and must be 
inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase 
goes, it may be my duty to make some new announce- 
ment to the people of the South. I am considering, 
and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will 
be proper. 



X 8S2*-« 










^r 














•J^ O i> \ 


















% " * « 1 n " ' <.0'-^ 






'^■^■ 



'^ ■. NO ^' .#■ 









•^**' -^^ 



s^\. 






.-.';>' 



b^ %- 



> 



'% '^'^' 






A >^ 












,^^ 



0^ 



P°<. ^^ >- ^ -^ j/^ ^^'^^ ^ .- , 




o 0^ 



^A <^' 












.\^ 



Z V 



.^'^' 






-r- 



..iv'^ 









.■^ 



